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Objection 1: It would seem that it does not belong to God alone to
create, because, according to the Philosopher (De Anima ii, text
34), what is perfect can make its own likeness. But immaterial
creatures are more perfect than material creatures, which nevertheless
can make their own likeness, for fire generates fire, and man begets
man. Therefore an immaterial substance can make a substance like to
itself. But immaterial substance can be made only by creation, since
it has no matter from which to be made. Therefore a creature can
create.
Objection 2: Further, the greater the resistance is on the part of
the thing made, so much the greater power is required in the maker.
But a "contrary" resists more than "nothing." Therefore it
requires more power to make (something) from its contrary, which
nevertheless a creature can do, than to make a thing from nothing.
Much more therefore can a creature do this.
Objection 3: Further, the power of the maker is considered
according to the measure of what is made. But created being is
finite, as we proved above when treating of the infinity of God
(Question 7, Articles 2,3,4). Therefore only a finite power
is needed to produce a creature by creation. But to have a finite
power is not contrary to the nature of a creature. Therefore it is not
impossible for a creature to create.
On the contrary, Augustine says (De Trin. iii, 8) that neither
good nor bad angels can create anything. Much less therefore can any
other creatures.
I answer that, It sufficiently appears at the first glance,
according to what precedes (Article 1), that to create can be the
action of God alone. For the more universal effects must be reduced
to the more universal and prior causes. Now among all effects the most
universal is being itself: and hence it must be the proper effect of
the first and most universal cause, and that is God. Hence also it
is said (De Causis prop., iii) that "neither intelligence nor the
soul gives us being, except inasmuch as it works by divine
operation." Now to produce being absolutely, not as this or that
being, belongs to creation. Hence it is manifest that creation is the
proper act of God alone.
It happens, however, that something participates the proper action of
another, not by its own power, but instrumentally, inasmuch as it
acts by the power of another; as air can heat and ignite by the power
of fire. And so some have supposed that although creation is the
proper act of the universal cause, still some inferior cause acting by
the power of the first cause, can create. And thus Avicenna asserted
that the first separate substance created by God created another after
itself, and the substance of the world and its soul; and that the
substance of the world creates the matter of inferior bodies. And in
the same manner the Master says (Sent. iv, D, 5) that God can
communicate to a creature the power of creating, so that the latter can
create ministerially, not by its own power.
But such a thing cannot be, because the secondary instrumental cause
does not participate the action of the superior cause, except inasmuch
as by something proper to itself it acts dispositively to the effect of
the principal agent. If therefore it effects nothing, according to
what is proper to itself, it is used to no purpose; nor would there be
any need of certain instruments for certain actions. Thus we see that
a saw, in cutting wood, which it does by the property of its own
form, produces the form of a bench, which is the proper effect of the
principal agent. Now the proper effect of God creating is what is
presupposed to all other effects, and that is absolute being. Hence
nothing else can act dispositively and instrumentally to this effect,
since creation is not from anything presupposed, which can be disposed
by the action of the instrumental agent. So therefore it is impossible
for any creature to create, either by its own power or
instrumentally---that is, ministerially.
And above all it is absurd to suppose that a body can create, for no
body acts except by touching or moving; and thus it requires in its
action some pre-existing thing, which can be touched or moved, which
is contrary to the very idea of creation.
Reply to Objection 1: A perfect thing participating any nature,
makes a likeness to itself, not by absolutely producing that nature,
but by applying it to something else. For an individual man cannot be
the cause of human nature absolutely, because he would then be the
cause of himself; but he is the cause of human nature being in the man
begotten; and thus he presupposes in his action a determinate matter
whereby he is an individual man. But as an individual man participates
human nature, so every created being participates, so to speak, the
nature of being; for God alone is His own being, as we have said
above (Question 7, Articles 1,2). Therefore no created being
can produce a being absolutely, except forasmuch as it causes "being"
in "this": and so it is necessary to presuppose that whereby a thing
is this thing, before the action whereby it makes its own likeness.
But in an immaterial substance it is not possible to presuppose
anything whereby it is this thing; because it is what it is by its
form, whereby it has being, since it is a subsisting form. Therefore
an immaterial substance cannot produce another immaterial substance like
to itself as regards its being, but only as regards some added
perfection; as we may say that a superior angel illuminates an
inferior, as Dionysius says (Coel. Hier. iv, x). In this way
even in heaven there is paternity, as the Apostle says (Eph.
3:15): "From whom all paternity in heaven and on earth is
named." From which evidently appears that no created being can cause
anything, unless something is presupposed; which is against the very
idea of creation.
Reply to Objection 2: A thing is made from its contrary indirectly
(Phys. i, text 43), but directly from the subject which is in
potentiality. And so the contrary resists the agent, inasmuch as it
impedes the potentiality from the act which the agent intends to
induce, as fire intends to reduce the matter of water to an act like to
itself, but is impeded by the form and contrary dispositions, whereby
the potentiality (of the water) is restrained from being reduced to
act; and the more the potentiality is restrained, the more power is
required in the agent to reduce the matter to act. Hence a much
greater power is required in the agent when no potentiality
pre-exists. Thus therefore it appears that it is an act of much
greater power to make a thing from nothing, than from its contrary.
Reply to Objection 3: The power of the maker is reckoned not only
from the substance of the thing made, but also from the mode of its
being made; for a greater heat heats not only more, but quicker.
Therefore although to create a finite effect does not show an infinite
power, yet to create it from nothing does show an infinite power:
which appears from what has been said (ad 2). For if a greater
power is required in the agent in proportion to the distance of the
potentiality from the act, it follows that the power of that which
produces something from no presupposed potentiality is infinite,
because there is no proportion between "no potentiality" and the
potentiality presupposed by the power of a natural agent, as there is
no proportion between "not being" and "being." And because no
creature has simply an infinite power, any more than it has an infinite
being, as was proved above (Question 7, Article 2), it follows
that no creature can create.
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