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Objection 1: It would seem that God cannot create anything,
because, according to the Philosopher (Phys. i, text 34), the
ancient philosophers considered it as a commonly received axiom that
"nothing is made from nothing." But the power of God does not
extend to the contraries of first principles; as, for instance, that
God could make the whole to be less than its part, or that affirmation
and negation are both true at the same time. Therefore God cannot
make anything from nothing, or create.
Objection 2: Further, if to create is to make something from
nothing, to be created is to be made. But to be made is to be
changed. Therefore creation is change. But every change occurs in
some subject, as appears by the definition of movement: for movement
is the act of what is in potentiality. Therefore it is impossible for
anything to be made out of nothing by God.
Objection 3: Further, what has been made must have at some time
been becoming. But it cannot be said that what is created, at the
same time, is becoming and has been made, because in permanent things
what is becoming, is not, and what has been made, already is: and so
it would follow that something would be, and not be, at the same
time. Therefore when anything is made, its becoming precedes its
having been made. But this is impossible, unless there is a subject
in which the becoming is sustained. Therefore it is impossible that
anything should be made from nothing.
Objection 4: Further, infinite distance cannot be crossed. But
infinite distance exists between being and nothing. Therefore it does
not happen that something is made from nothing.
On the contrary, It is said (Gn. 1:1): "In the beginning
God created heaven and earth."
I answer that, Not only is it impossible that anything should be
created by God, but it is necessary to say that all things were
created by God, as appears from what has been said (Question 44,
Article 1). For when anyone makes one thing from another, this
latter thing from which he makes is presupposed to his action, and is
not produced by his action; thus the craftsman works from natural
things, as wood or brass, which are caused not by the action of art,
but by the action of nature. So also nature itself causes natural
things as regards their form, but presupposes matter. If therefore
God did only act from something presupposed, it would follow that the
thing presupposed would not be caused by Him. Now it has been shown
above (Question 44, Articles 1,2), that nothing can be,
unless it is from God, Who is the universal cause of all being.
Hence it is necessary to say that God brings things into being from
nothing.
Reply to Objection 1: Ancient philosophers, as is said above
(Question 44, Article 2), considered only the emanation of
particular effects from particular causes, which necessarily presuppose
something in their action; whence came their common opinion that
"nothing is made from nothing." But this has no place in the first
emanation from the universal principle of things.
Reply to Objection 2: Creation is not change, except according to
a mode of understanding. For change means that the same something
should be different now from what it was previously. Sometimes,
indeed, the same actual thing is different now from what it was
before, as in motion according to quantity, quality and place; but
sometimes it is the same being only in potentiality, as in substantial
change, the subject of which is matter. But in creation, by which
the whole substance of a thing is produced, the same thing can be taken
as different now and before only according to our way of understanding,
so that a thing is understood as first not existing at all, and
afterwards as existing. But as action and passion coincide as to the
substance of motion, and differ only according to diverse relations
(Phys. iii, text 20,21), it must follow that when motion is
withdrawn, only diverse relations remain in the Creator and in the
creature. But because the mode of signification follows the mode of
understanding as was said above (Question 13, Article 1),
creation is signified by mode of change; and on this account it is said
that to create is to make something from nothing. And yet "to make"
and "to be made" are more suitable expressions here than "to change"
and "to be changed," because "to make" and "to be made" import a
relation of cause to the effect, and of effect to the cause, and imply
change only as a consequence.
Reply to Objection 3: In things which are made without movement,
to become and to be already made are simultaneous, whether such making
is the term of movement, as illumination (for a thing is being
illuminated and is illuminated at the same time) or whether it is not
the term of movement, as the word is being made in the mind and is made
at the same time. In these things what is being made, is; but when
we speak of its being made, we mean that it is from another, and was
not previously. Hence since creation is without movement, a thing is
being created and is already created at the same time.
Reply to Objection 4: This objection proceeds from a false
imagination, as if there were an infinite medium between nothing and
being; which is plainly false. This false imagination comes from
creation being taken to signify a change existing between two forms.
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