Whether Creation is Possible
I. Nominal definition of creation:
For something to be made ex nihilo is for some agent to make
it without acting on any subject or material cause, so that every part
of it (or every aspect of its being or every reality that belongs to it)
is made by the agent's action. (See ST 1.45.1.ad3 and DM 20.1.1 and 10.)
The phrase ex nihilo in Aliquid fit ex nihilo can be understood
in one of two ways:
- 1. It can be thought of as playing the role of the privation and thus
as affirming that total nothingness is the terminus a quo of the
action. (Compare Aristotle's "From the non-musical the musical comes
to be.") In the case of creation, the privation is a privation of
all being--that is, the absence of all potentiality--and not just
the privation of an accidental or substantial form with respect to which
the subject is in potentiality. On this reading the ordering of terminus
a quo to terminus ad quem is affirmed and nothingness is designated
as the terminus a quo. As St. Thomas puts it, on this interpretation
the preposition ex has the negation within its scope: fit ex
non-esse.
- 2. It can be thought of as playing the role of the material cause and
thus as denying that that the action in question has a material cause.
(Compare Aristotle's "From the man comes the musical"). As St.
Thomas puts it, on this interpretation the negation has the preposition
ex within its scope: fit non ex aliquo.
II. Arguments for the impossibility of creation ex nihilo
- A. From the authority of past philosophers
- 1. None of the philosophers knew of creation. (DM 20.1.2)
- 2. All the best philosophers have taken it as self-evident that nothing
can be made ex nihilo. (DM 20.12, DP 3.1.#1, and ST 1.45.2.#1)
- B. From the nature of possibility
- 1. Before the world was made, it was possible that it be made. But
such a possibility must be grounded in the (passive) potentiality of some
subject. So everything that is made must be made from some subject or material
cause and must be an actualization of a potentiality existing in that subject.
Therefore, it is impossible for anything to be made ex nihilo, i.e.,
from no subject or material cause. (DP 3.1.#2)
- C. From the similiarity and dissimilarity that action requires between
the agent and the patient
- 1. A given potentiality is said to be distant from its corresponding
act in proportion to the degree to which its subject is disposed toward
that act. (In turn, this distance is the measure of the power that is required
to reduce that potentiality to actuality.) But by this standard, total
nothingness is infinitely distant from being, since it has no disposition
toward any actuality; and it is impossible to cross an infinite distance.
So nothing can pass from total nothingness to being. (DP 3.1.#3, and ST
1.45.2.#4)
- 2. An agent cannot be totally dissimilar to what it acts on; instead,
the agent and patient must agree at least in genus and matter. But absolute
non-being is totally dissimilar to God. Therefore, God cannot act on absolute
non-being or, consequently, produce something ex nihilo. (DP 3.1.#4)
- 3. Someone might claim that the principle An agent cannot be totally
dissimilar to what it acts on applies only to an agent whose action,
unlike God's action, differs from the agent's substance, and that this
is why the action must be received in some subject. (Explain this principle.)
But Avicenna claims that heat, whose action is not its substance, could
still act even if it were deprived of a subject. And so the fact that God's
action is his substance is irrelevant to the question of whether or not
he needs matter in order to act. (DP 3.1 #5)
- D. From an analogy with the order of reason
- 1. A conclusion's being derived from premises is analogous in the order
of reason to a thing's being-made or coming-to-be in the order nature,
i.e., in the real order. So just as no conclusion can be derived from no
premises, so too no entity can be made from nothing. (DP 3.1 #6)
- E. From the meaning of `ex' in ex nihilo and, in general, from the
peculiarity of creation as a mode of efficient causality
- 1. The term following the preposition `ex' designates either
a cause or a certain ordering. If a cause, then either an efficient cause
or a material cause. Not an efficient cause, since nothingness cannot be
an efficient cause of being; not a material cause, since nothingness cannot
be a material cause of anything. But neither does it designate an ordering,
since, as Boethius says, there is no ordering of being with respect to
non-being. That is, an ordering requires beings as relata or terms. Therefore,
there is no reading of `ex' on which Something is made ex nihilo
can come out true. (DP 3.1 #7)
- 2. `Ex' can play one of three roles in Something is made
ex nihilo, where these three roles correspond to the three locutions
Aristotle uses to describe a change:
- a. From the [subject] S the [form] F is made (the reduction
of the subject's potentiality to actuality; example, From the bronze
the statue-shaped is made).
- b. From the [opposite] G the [form] F comes to be (the ordering
of an opposite entailing the privation of F (terminus a quo)
to the form (terminus ad quem); example: From the other-shaped
the statue-shaped is made).
- c. From the [opposite + substance] G S the [form + substance] F
S comes to be (the ordering of the beginning composite to the terminal
composite; example: From the other-shaped bronze the statue-shaped bronze
is made) ..................So the term following `ex' must designate
either the subject, the opposite, or the composite of subject and opposite.
Not the subject, since nothingness cannot be the subject or matter of a
being. Not the composite, since the composite must include the subject
which perdures through the change and is common to the pre-change and post-change
composites; but there is nothing common to being and non-being. Not the
opposite, since the two opposites in a change must belong to the same genus
(e.g., both must be shapes or colors, etc.), whereas being and non-being
share no genus in common. (DP 3.1 #15)
- 3. In the same vein, locution (b) is per accidens; that is,
From the G the F is made is per accidens, or alternatively,
the F comes to be per accidens from the G. This per accidens
locution can be traced back to per se locution From the G S the
F S is made, which makes explicit the commonality of subject. For the
subject, but not the opposite, is one of the per se or direct causes
of F, viz., its material cause, whereas the opposite is a principle of
change only because of its relation to the subject. So if you claim that
Something is made ex nihilo is of type (b), then this locution must
likewise be traced back to some per se locution that invokes a subject.
(DP 3.1 #16)
- 4. A maker gives esse to the thing that is made, and so if God
makes something ex nihilo, he gives esse to that thing. Now
either there is something that receives the esse or there is not.
If there is nothing that receives the esse, then nothing is brought
into being through the action. On the other hand, if there is something
that receives the esse, then this thing will be distinct from that
which is from God, since that which receives must be distinct from what
it receives. Therefore, God acts on something that preexists and not ex
nihilo. (DP 3.1 #17)
- 5. It is impossible for a being to be made insofar as it is a being,
because (i) if through creation a being is made per se and primarily
insofar as it is a being, then it follows that every being (even God) is
creatable, and also because (ii) creation presupposes the esse essentiae
of the thing created. (DM 20.1.5)
- F. From the nature of active power
- 1. According to Aristotle, an active power is a principle of the transformation
of something into another insofar as it is other. So since God's power
is an active power, it requires some subject to be transformed and so it
cannot make anything ex nihilo. (DP 3.1 #8)
- 2. Creation requires an infinite power (otherwise, a creature could
create). But it cannot be demonstrated that an infinite power is possible--at
least, this cannot be established without appealing to creation. (DM 20.1.4)
- G. From the diversity of the effects
- 1. There is a diversity among things, according to which one is more
perfect than another. But the source of this diversity cannot be God, who
is one and simple. Therefore, one must designate matter as the principle
of diversity. Therefore, one must say that these diverse things are made
from matter and not ex nihilo. (DP 3.1 #9)
- 2. There is a diversity among things, according to which one is more
powerful than another, and this diversity implies an imperfection on the
part of the less powerful things. But the source of perfection cannot also
be the source of imperfection. Thus, since God is the source of perfection,
something else is the source of imperfection--and this something else must
be matter. Therefore, it must be that things have been made from matter
and not ex nihilo, since otherwise God would be the source of both
their perfection and their imperfection. (DP 3.1 #14)
- H. From problems concerning limits
- 1. Something that is made ex nihilo has esse after non-esse.
Now take (i) the last instant at which the thing does not exist, i.e.,
the instant at which the non-esse ceases and (ii) the first instant
at which the thing does exist, i.e., the instant at which the esse
begins. Either (a) they are the same instant, in which case two contradictories
are true at the same instant; or (b) they are diverse instants, in which
case, because time is dense, it follows that there is some interval during
which neither of the two contradictories is true. But this is likewise
impossible. Therefore, nothing can be made ex nihilo. (DP 3.1 #10)
- 2. Whatever has been made is such that at some time it was being made;
so whatever has been created is such that at some time it was being created.
Therefore, either the being-created and the having-been-created are simultaneous
or they are not simultaneous. It is impossible that they not be simultaneous.
For a creature does not exist before it has been made, and so if its being-made
exists before its having-been-made does, then there will have to be some
subject of the process of being-made, which is contrary to the definition
of creation. On the other hand, it is impossible for the being-created
and having-been-created to be simultaneous, since if they are, then the
thing simultaneously exists (because it has been created) and does not
exist (because it is still being created). Therefore, it is impossible
for something to be created ex nihilo. (DP 3.1 #11 and ST 1.45.2.#3)
- I. From the nature of the objects of creation
- 1. Every agent effects what is similar to itself, and every agent acts
insofar as it is in act; therefore, nothing is made except that which is
in act. But primary matter is not in act, because of itself it is devoid
of all form or act. Therefore, it cannot be made, especially by God, who
is Pure Act with no admixture of (passive) potentiality. Therefore, whatever
is made by God is made from presupposed matter and not ex nihilo.
(DP 3.1 #12)
- 2. Whatever God makes is effected by means of ideas--in the way an
artisan makes artifacts by means of ideas. But there is no divine idea
of matter; for an idea is a form and a likeness of the object of the idea,
whereas matter is conceived of without any form at all and so cannot have
a likeness. Therefore, primary matter cannot be made by God. (DP 3.1 #13)
- 3. It cannot be demonstrated with respect to any being that that being
is created. For every being is either a substance or an accident. But accidents
existing in subjects are not created ex nihilo, and reason cannot
demonstrate that any accident can exist apart from a subject. On the other
hand, substances are either material or immaterial. Reason cannot even
establish the existence of immaterial substances, and all material substances
are composed of matter, and reason cannot establish that matter is created.
Why, after all, can't matter have its imperfect sort of being from itself?
Hence, it cannot be shown that creation is possible. ((DM 20.1.3)
III. Summaries of claims by St. Thomas and Suarez
- St. Thomas's main concern here is not so much with the general question
of whether creation is possible as with the more particular question of
whether God can create something ex nihilo. His strategy
is to show the relevant respects in which God as an absolutely universal
cause differs from other, particular, agents. Specifically, he claims that
actions are attributed to agents according to the manner in which the agents
themselves are actual or in act. Now there are two ways in which particular
agents are actual in a particular (i.e., non-universal) way:
- (1) in comparison to themselves: they are not such that their
principle of actuality is their whole substance. Rather, they are composite
beings whose principles of actuality are distinct from themselves as wholes.
(St. Thomas here applies this only to substances composed of form and matter,
but the point can be extended to immaterial finite substances as well.)
These principles are, first and foremost, their substantial forms and,
derivatively, their accidental forms. It follows that their actions are
by means of forms and that all they can communicate are forms; and it is
for this reason that they require subjects to act upon. For given that
it is forms alone that they communicate, the production of such forms--be
they substantial or accidental--presupposes a subject which has the forms
potentially. We might call this intensive particularity.
- (2) in comparison to the things that are actual: each particular
agent has a certain limited set of forms and hence is able to communicate
just a limited number of forms or perfections. (This follows from the principle
that an agent effects only what is similar to itself in some relevant way.)
As St. Thomas puts it, particular agents are not capable of effecting a
being insofar as it is a being, but are instead capable of effecting a
being only insofar as it is such-and-such a being delimited to this or
that species. We might call this extensive particularity.
- So every natural agent requires matter to act on and, more generally,
every particular agent requires a subject to act on. God, by contrast,
is such that (i) he is wholly actual, i.e., Pure Actuality, with no admixture
of passive potentiality (intensive universality), and (ii) he has
all perfections and is hence able to communicate them (extensive universality).
So he is able to communicate to a thing the whole of its esse, without
presupposing anything, and he is able to make any possible being. It further
follows that finite agents presuppose God's efficient causality in their
own causing, since whatever they act on is traced back to him as the First
Cause.
- Here St. Thomas simply points out that every agent that effects something
out of something presupposes the existence of the latter. Hence, if God
always acted on something in producing his effects, then it would follow
that what he presupposes in acting would not be created by him. But this
would conflict with the earlier conclusion that God, as Unparticipated
Esse, is the source of esse for all other things. We will
leave this aside until the reports on ST 1.44.1 and SCG 2, chap. 15.
- Suarez proposes the following argument for the possibility of creation:
- (1) God exists and is as fully perfect as is possible within the range
of being. (assumption)
- (2) Creation ex nihilo is possible in the sense that the notion
of creation ex nihilo involves no incoherence or contradiction.
(premise)
- (3) So the power to create ex nihilo is possible in the sense
that such power involves no incoherence or imperfection. (from 2 and argument
below)
- (4) So the power to create ex nihilo exists in God. (from (3)
and (1))
- (5) So creation is possible in the sense that it is grounded in some
active power. (from (4))
- Therefore, creation is absolutely possible. (from (2) and (5)
- Proof of (2): see 10 and #12; proof of inference from (2)
to (3): see #11 and #12; proof of inference from (1) and (3) to
(4): see #13; also, look at the three shorter arguments for the main
thesis in #14. (Notice that Suarez does not invoke the argument St. Thomas
uses in DP 3.1.)
- At this point Suarez goes on to argue that creation is actual and not
merely possible. He does this by going inductively through the four main
categories of actually existing finite beings (viz., incorruptible material
substances, corruptible material substances, matter itself, and immaterial
substances) and showing that all of them require or presuppose creation
ex nihilo:
- Incorruptible immaterial substances: See #15
- Corruptible material substances: See #16
- Matter: See ##17-20
- Immaterial substances: See #21
IV. Replies to objections
- St. Thomas: The ancient philosophers considered only the changes
wrought by particular natural agents, which are either motions [motus]
(accidental changes) or changes [mutationes] (accidental + substantial
changes). More on this in ST 1.44.2.
- Suarez: Concentrating on Aristotle, Suarez marshalls arguments
for both sides of the question of whether Aristotle knew of creation (see
24-26). In the end, he thinks that Aristotle did know, albeit rather obscurely,
of creation. The argument concerning the rational soul (26) is especially
interesting.
- St. Thomas: There are two senses, neither involving a preexisting
passive potentiality, in which the world was possible. First, there is
no inconsistency in the notion of the world. Second, there is an active
power or potency in which the world's possibility is grounded, viz., God's
active potency. (The argument in question is one that Aristotle uses not
to undermine the possibility of creation, but to undermine the Platonic
notion that the Forms are principles of generation.)
- Suarez: Look again at 11.
- De Potentia: What is infinitely distant (in the relevant sense)
from non-being is not being but instead infinite being.
Thus, one cannot go from non-being into infinite being, or vice versa.
But the passage (if it can be called that) from non-being to finite being
is not infinite, since it has a finite terminus.
- Summa Theologiae: The argument proceeds from the false conception
that there is an infinite medium between nothingness and being; and this
false conception stems from the fact that creation is signified by us as
a sort of change from one existent terminus to another existent terminus.
- Nothingness is not the subject which the agent acts on, but rather
the terminus a quo. So the principle in question is inapplicable.
- If heat were deprived of matter, it would, to be sure, act without
the matter that is required on the part of the agent, but not without the
matter required on the part of the patient. If the latter were eliminated
there would be nothing to give warmth to and hence no action.
- A conclusion's being drawn is the logical analogue of a thing's being
moved, since when a conclusion is drawn, the argument can be thought of
as moving from one terminus to another. So every conclusion presupposes
premises. But creation is the analogue of grasping a first principle, which
is not grasped on the basis of anything prior.
- Here St. Thomas gives something like the reply alluded to in I above,
adding two more possibilities, where what is parenthesized falls within
the scope of the negation:
- A. Not (something is made from something)--e.g., It is not the
case that God is made from something (false of creation).
- B. Something is made [but] not (from something)--i.e., Something
is made but not from a material cause (true of creation).
- C. Something is made from not (something)--here there are two
senses: (1) not-something is a material cause (false of creation); (2)
not-something is the terminus a quo (true of creation).
- Creation is from the opposite in sense (C2) above. Nor does it follow
from this that a being of one genus comes to be from a being of a different
genus. For being and non-being cannot exist together in the way that color
and shape can. And the relevant condition governing the opposites is that
they not be able to exist together.
- If we take `ex' as designating a material cause, then something
comes from its opposite only per accidens. But if `ex' designates
an ordering instead, then there is a sense in which something comes from
its opposite per se, viz., the sense in which the privation is called
a principle of the esse of that which is going to be made.
- At the same time that he gives esse, God produces that which
receives the esse, and so it is not necessary that God act on some
preexistent thing.
- Suarez: There are three readings of Through creation a being
is made insofar as it is a being:
- A. Reduplicative, where what is reduplicated is the term being
in its widest sense. (See note 60)
- B. Reduplicative, where what is reduplicated is the term finite
being. (See note 61)
- C. Specificative. (See note 62). (Compare: Christ as human was born
in Bethlehem.)
- Suarez claims that (C) is the proper sense in which the proposition
is true.
- Aristotle's definition is meant to apply only to active natural
powers.
- Suarez: All I claim to have proved thus far is that a power
sufficient to create actually exists. I have not yet argued that this power
is infinite. So the two theses are independent and can be proved separately.
- Since God produces things freely, the diversity of things originates
from the order of divine wisdom, which establishes a diversity of natures
in order to fill out the universe.
- It is not necessary that if x is more perfect than y,
then y has some imperfection. For the term `imperfection' designates
the absence of a perfection that the thing should have given its nature.
Hence, in heaven one saint will be happier than another even though the
latter lacks nothing appropriate to his state.
- Alternatively, if one claims that there is imperfection among creatures
as such, it need not stem from either God or matter, but rather from the
fact that the creature has been made ex nihilo. (One way to conceive
of this: there are varying distances from non-being to being, and some
creatures are by nature more removed from nothingness, and this to the
extent that their natures have more dignity.)
- Before the beginning of the world there is no time, and hence there
is no real last instant of non-esse, but at best an imaginary
last instant of non-esse. And so there is no real temporal medium
between the last instant of non-esse and the first instant of esse.
(In normal cases of coming-to-be and passing-away in time, medieval logicians
generally held that `x begins to be' is true at the first instant
of x's existence, and `x ceases to be' is true at the last
instant of x's existence. Also, they generally held that (i) real
entities that come into existence have a first instant of existence but
no last instant of non-existence, and that (ii) real entities that cease
to exist have a last instant of existence but no first instant of non-existence.)
- In the case of creation, which is not a process or change in the proper
sense, the being-created and the having-been-created are simultaneous.
The same holds for all instantaneous mutations. In these cases being-made
is attributed to the things at their first instant of existence.
- Alternatively, one can say that being-made is attributed to a thing
that is created not because of a motion but because of its outflowing from
the agent. These two elements (motion and outflowing) occur together in
generation, but only the latter occurs in creation.
- Properly speaking, only subsistent things--and not forms or accidents
or matter--are created, since only subsistent things have esse per se.
Forms, accidents, and matter are instead said to be co-created,
i.e., created along with, or as constituents (in a broad sense) of, subsistent
things.
- Alternatively, if you don't like this answer, you can say that primary
matter does indeed have some similitude to God insofar as it participates
in being, though not being in act. For being is common to both being-in-act
and being-in-potency.
- Same reply as previous one. Note that, strictly speaking, there is
no divine idea of matter as such. Rather, there are ideas of entities that
have matter as a constituent. For the ideas are of makeable things and
are ordered toward making (ideae factivae), whereas matter is not
makeable by itself.
- See discussion of DM 20.1 above.
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