Whether Creation Requires an Infinite Power
I. Some preliminaries
- A. First of all, we must distinguish a principal power to create
from an instrumental power to create. The former is a power proportioned
to the effect within its own genus, whereas the latter is a power that
is not proportioned to the effect within its own genus and that thus has
to be elevated by a principal power in order to attain to the effect. (Look
at Suarez's discussion in DM 17.2 and think of some examples.) Some of
the arguments for the affirmative answer to the main question are speaking
of a principal power and others of an instrumental or ministerial power.
- B. There are different sorts of principal power that might count as
powers to create (see DM 20.2.4-7):
- (1) a power that has creatable being as its adequate object,
so that the power is proportioned to every creatable being and so is capable
of producing any creatable being ex nihilo.
- (2) a power to produce a limited range of beings ex nihilo in
such a way that the agent acts independently of any other principal power.
- (3) a power to produce, with God's general concurrence, some limited
range of beings ex nihilo.
- Suarez argues rather compellingly that neither (1) nor (2) can be communicated
to any creature. The question concerning a principal power to create boils
down, then, to whether a principal power of type (3) is communicable to
a creature, either as a connatural power that it has by its nature
or as a supernatural power that is added to its nature (see DM 20.2.9).
- C. Be sure to keep the above distinctions in mind as you read St. Thomas,
who tries to show no creature can have any sort of power to create,
be it instrumental or principal, connatural or supernatural.
II. Arguments for the claim that the power to create can be communicated
to a creature
- A. From the symmetry between efficient and final causality
- 1. Things are ordered back toward their ultimate end in the same manner
and order in which they emanate from their first principle. But lower creatures
are ordered to God as an end through the mediation of higher creatures.
Therefore, lower creatures likewise emanate from the first principle through
the mediation of higher creatures. And so the act of creation has been
communicated to these higher creatures. (DP 3.4.#1)
- B. From the nature of the power to create
- 1. If anything is such that, if it were communicated to a creature,
it would not put the creature beyond the limits of a creature, then that
thing is communicable to a creature through the power of the creator. (The
creator, after all, is able to establish new genera of creatures.) But
if the power to create were communicated to a creature, it would not put
it beyond the limits of a creature. Therefore, the power to create is communicable
to a creature.
- Proof of minor: Only that which is repugnant to (i.e., incompatible
with) the notion or concept or nature (ratio) would put it outside
the limits of a creature. But the only reason why the power to create might
be thought repugnant to a creature is the common claim that this power
must be infinite. However, it is not the case that an infinite power is
required in order to create. For finite being participates finitely in
the nature of being and hence is only finitely distant from absolute non-being.
But to bring something into being from a finite distance does not bespeak
an infinite power. So a finite power is sufficient in order to create,
and hence such a power is not repugnant to the notion of a creature. (DP
3.4.#2)
- Cf. DM 20.2.8: The contribution of the material cause in ordinary cases
of efficient causality is something finite. So why couldn't a higher finite
agent compensate for the absence of a subject?
- 2. Someone will retort that `distance' considerations apply only when
we are talking about two positive natures and not when we are talking about
an attribute (habitudo) and its privation or about an affirmation
and its negation.
- Sed contra: The opposition alluded to in (B1) pertains to contraries
insofar as they are distant from one another, something that belongs to
them as opposites. But the root of opposition is just the opposition between
the affirmation and its negation (see Metaphysics 4), and so distance
considerations are indeed relevant in the case at hand. (DP 3.4.#3)
- 3. The greater the patient's resistance to the agent, the greater the
difficulty of producing the effect. But a (positive) contrary puts up more
resistance than nothingness does, since nothingness cannot act in the way
that a contrary does. Therefore, since a creature can produce something
from a contrary, it follows a fortiori that a creature can produce
something ex nihilo. Therefore, a creature can create. (DP 3.4.#16)
- 4. There seems to be no reason why a limited creaturely power to create
that is dependent on God's concurrence should be impossible. For such a
power is not infinite either in its object or its mode of acting. It is
wrong to think that such a power would be infinite just in virtue of the
fact that it requires no material cause. First of all, an action's lack
of dependence on a subject does not imply infinity. After all, the material
cause's contribution in ordinary cases of efficient causality is finite
and hence could be supplied by the power of a higher finite agent. Second,
it can happen that a greater power is required to produce a more perfect
entity from a proximate potentiality than to produce a less perfect entity
from a remote potentiality. So why shouldn't a creature have the power
to create at least a low-level entity. Finally, even if it could be shown
that such a power cannot be connatural to a creature, this still does not
rule out God's giving the power as a supernatural addition. (DM 20.2.8-9).
- C. From the role of angels must have in effecting corporeal things
- 1. Augustine says that there are three ways in which things are said
to be made: (a) in the Word (John 1); (b) in angelic cognition; and (c)
in their proper nature. Now the way in which things are said to be made
"in angelic understanding" seems to lie between the other two
ways. Thus, it seems that things come to exist in their proper natures
by the Word through the mediation of angelic cognition. So, it seems that
things are created through the mediation of angels. (DP 3.4.#4)
- 2. Everything that is made must be similar to the agent that makes
it. But a corporeal creature is not similar to God in either species or
genus. Therefore, God can create only through the mediation of some creature
that is similar to a corporeal creature at least in genus. Thus, it seems
that corporeal creatures are created by God through the mediation of higher
creatures. (DP 3.4.#9)
- 3. In De immortalitate animae 16 Augustine says that a spiritual
creature communicates species and esse to a corporeal creature;
and so it seems that corporeal creatures are created by the mediation of
spiritual creatures. (DP 3.4.#12)
- 4. The cognition of a genus can be of two sorts: (a) that which is
directed toward (making) the thing (virtually practical cognition)
and (b) that which derives from the thing (speculative cognition).
But an angel does not know corporeal entities through a cognition that
derives from the things, since an angel lacks the powers of sentience by
means of which the cognition of sensible things reaches the intellect.
Therefore, an angel knows corporeal things by a cognition that is directed
toward (making) the thing--just like God knows them. So just as God is
a cause of things through his knowledge, so too an angel's knowledge seems
to be a cause of things. (DP 3.4.#13)
- 5. There are two ways in which things come into being: (a) by passing
from pure non-being into being, and this happens through creation; and
(b) by passing from potency into act (generation). Now a material power--the
sort that belongs to natural things--is able to produce things in the second
way, viz., by drawing things from potency into act. Therefore, a spiritual
power, which is stronger and which is the sort that belongs to angels--is
able to produce things in the first way, viz., by creation. And so it seems
that angels are able to create. (DP 3.4.#14)
- D. From the role angels must have in effecting spiritual things
- 1. Spiritual light is more noble and more powerful than corporeal light.
But corporeal light multiplies (diffuses?) itself. Therefore, angels--whom
Augustine calls spiritual light--are able to multiply themselves. But this
can only be through creation. Therefore, an angel is able to create. (DP
3.4.#6)
- 2. In the Liber de causis 7 one reads that the second intelligence
receives the goods that proceed from the First Cause only through the mediation
of a higher intelligence. But being itself is one the first goods. Therefore,
the second intelligence receives its being from God only through the mediation
of the first intelligence. And so it seems that God communicates the act
of creation to some creature. (DP 3.4.#10)
- 3. In the same book of the Liber de causes one reads that an
intelligence knows in the manner of its own substance that which is inferior
to it, insofar as it is a cause of what is inferior to it. But one intelligence
knows another intelligence that is inferior to it; therefore, it is that
intelligence's cause. But an intelligence can be caused only through creation.
Therefore, an intelligence is able to create. (DP 3.4.#11)
- E. From God's omnipotence
- 1. Nothing and something are more distant from one another
than are something and being (esse), since nothing
and something have no common element, whereas something is
a part of being. Now when God creates he makes what was nothing
to be something and hence he makes it the case that no potency
becomes some potency. Therefore, a fortiori, he can bring
it about that some finite potency (viz., the sort that a creature
has) becomes omni-potency (i.e., omnipotence), which is the sort of power
needed to create. Thus, the power to create can be communicated to a creature.
(DP 3.4.#5)
- 2. Nothing is greater than what is infinite. But it takes an infinite
power to educe something from nothingness into being--otherwise, nothing
would prevent creatures from creating. Therefore, no power is greater than
this power. And so the power to create a creature ex nihilo and
give it the power to create is no greater than the power to create it in
the first place. God can do the latter; therefore, he can do the former.
(DP 3.4.#15)
- F. From the nature of certain types of instrumental or ministerial
causality
- 1. Substantial forms are not generated, since it is only the composite
substance that is generated. Therefore, substantial forms must be created.
But created agents dispose matter for substantial forms. Therefore, they
act as instruments (ministers) of creation, and so it can be communicated
to a creature that it be an instrument of creation. (DP 3.4.#7)
- 2. The work of justification is more noble than the work of creation,
since grace exceeds nature. (Augustine: It is a greater work to justify
a wicked person than it is to create heaven and earth.) But a creature
plays the role of minister (instrument) in the justification of the wicked,
since a priest is said to justify as a minister or to remit sins as a minister.
Therefore, a fortiori, a creature can play the role of minister
in the act of creation. (DP 3.4.#8)
III. Summaries of claims made by St. Thomas and Suarez
- St. Thomas begins by noting that some philosophers, moved by the belief
that a simple and unified First Cause cannot directly create a multiplicity
of diverse entities, claimed that God created lower creatures through the
mediation of higher creatures. (He names Avicenna and al-Ghazali--a mistaken
attribution for reasons I already noted in class.) St. Thomas notes that
the presupposed belief holds only in the case of an agent that acts by
a necessity of nature and lacks freedom, whereas Christians believe that
God acted freely and with intelligence. So the Catholic faith teaches that
God has in fact directly or immediately created all spiritual creatures
and the matter of all corporeal creatures.
- However, Catholic writers have disagreed over the question of whether
God is able to bring it about that creatures should be instrumental or
ministerial causes in creation--even if he has never in fact communicated
such power to any creature. The negative reply to this question is the
more common one, and it is this reply that St. Thomas sets out to defend
here.
- First of all, St. Thomas claims that, strictly speaking, creation designates
an active power which presupposes (i) no preexistent matter or subject
(i.e., material cause) and (ii) no prior or higher agent (i.e., efficient
cause). Point (i) is clear from the concept or definition of creation,
and point (ii) is clear from Augustine's claim that the angels are not
creators. Given this strict sense of creation, it is utterly obvious that
only the First Agent, whose action presupposes no other agent, can create.
For every secondary cause acts only in or with the power of the First Cause.
In short, to give esse is the proper effect of God alone, and so
every other agent, to the extent that it gives esse, do so not through
its own proper power but insofar as it participates in God's power and
operation. (Note that here St. Thomas gives a rather strong interpretation
of the claim that created agents are God's instruments.) This argument
is closely related to the first argument in the response of ST 1 45.5,
an argument that Suarez looks at in detail.
- However, this proves only that no creature can be a principal, wholly
independent cause of creation. Some philosophers claimed that the higher
intelligences, acting as principal but dependent causes in
the power of the First Cause, create the lower intelligences. "For
esse is through creation, whereas good and life are
through in-formation." This, St. Thomas, claims is the beginning of
idolatry, since worship was given to these (allegedly) creative spirits.
- Peter Lombard, on the other hand, claimed that creatures can create
not as principal causes whose effects are proportioned to their own power,
but as instrumental causes that are elevated by God, who acts as
the sole principal cause in creating. But this, St. Thomas claims, is impossible.
For an agent's action, even its instrumental action, must in some way proceed
from its own power. (This point is developed more fully in ST 1.45.5 in
the paragraph beginning "But this cannot be." Here St. Thomas
in effect asks: How would a creature contribute to creation as an
instrument?)
- St. Thomas then says: "But since every creaturely power is finite,
it is impossible that any creature should causally contribute to creation.
For creation requires an infinite power in the faculty from which it proceeds."
He then gives five arguments for this claim:
- 1. The power of the maker is proportionate to the distance that lies
between that which is made and the opposite (terminus a quo) from
which it is made. Absolute non-esse is infinitely distant from esse,
since non-esse is more distant from any given determinate being
x than any other being y is distant from x, no matter
how distant y is from x. Therefore, only an infinite power
can make something from absolute non-esse. (Cf. ST 1.45.5.ad 2 and
ad 3.)
- 2. The mode by which the thing made is effected is the mode by which
the agent acts. But an agent acts to the extent that it itself is actual
or in act, and so the only thing that acts according to its whole self
is that which is wholly in act (and has no passive potentiality)--something
that is true only of the Infinite Act which is the First Act. Therefore,
to effect an entity with respect to all of its substance belongs only to
an infinite power.
- 3. Given that (i) an accident must exist in a subject whereas (ii)
the subject of an action is that which receives the action, it follows
that the only being which, in acting, does not require some receiving matter
(subject) is a being whose action is not an accident but is instead its
very substance. But this is true only of God, and so to create belongs
to God alone. (There may be two ways to read this argument.)
- 4. All acting secondary causes have their acting from God (Liber
de causis, prop. 19-20). It must be that manner and order of acting
is imparted to all secondary agents by the First Agent, whereas the First
Agent's manner and order are not imposed on him by any agent. Since the
mode of acting depends on the matter that receives the agent's acting,
it will belong to the First Agent alone to act without a matter presupposed
from some other agent and to provide the matter for all other secondary
agents.
- 5. A reductio: The powers that reduce something from potency
to act are proportionate to the distance of that potency from that act.
That is, the more distant a potency is from act, the more power is needed.
Therefore, if there were a finite power that effected something without
any presupposed potency, then it would have to have some determinate ratio
to an active power that educes [that same thing] from potency into act.
And so there would have to be some ratio of no potency to some potency--which
is impossible. For non-being has no ratio to being. Therefore, no creaturely
power can create anything either by its own proper power or as an instrument.
- Suarez looks at five arguments: one by Duns Scotus (see DM 20.2.14-21),
one by William of Ockham, and three by St. Thomas. He finds Scotus's argument
persuasive though not demonstrative. This argument can be seen as an inductive
elaboration of St. Thomas's argument that a particular agent cannot create
because of its intrinsic physical makeup. In short, he argues that (i)
a material substance cannot create, because it cannot create through either
its matter or its form or its accidents (14-18), and that (ii) a finite
spiritual substance cannot create, because it cannot create through its
accidents (18-21). (The second part of the argument is especially interesting
to us, because it was not entirely clear how to extend St. Thomas's argument
in DP 3.1 to spiritual substances.) Ockham's argument is not very impressive
and Suarez quickly dispatches with it. St. Thomas's arguments are complex
and Suarez explores them in some depth. In the end Suarez concludes that
at least one of St. Thomas's argument is persuasive, even if not compelling.
IV. Replies to objections
- Things that are ordered to an end already exist, and so it is not impossible
for a creaturely agent to cooperate with God in leading other things to
their ultimate end. But nothing is presupposed in a total or universal
eduction of things into being. Hence, there is no analogy.
- Nothing prevents a given distance from being thought of as infinite
in one direction and finite in the other. We think of a distance as being
infinite in both directions when both of the opposites are infinite; for
instance, an infinite heat would be infinitely distant in both directions
from an infinite coldness. On the other hand, we think of a distance as
being infinite in just one of the two directions when the second opposite
is finite; for instance, an infinite heat would be infinitely distant in
just one direction from a finite heat. Thus, infinite being is infinitely
distant in both directions from absolute non-being. On the other hand,
finite being is infinitely distant in just one direction from absolute
non-being, and it still requires an infinite active power.
- We grant this objection, since the point stands regardless of whether
both of the opposites are positive natures or just one of them is.
- Difficulty in action can be of two sorts:
- (1) The patient resists the agent. This occurs only in cases where
the agent undergoes a contrary action at the hands of the patient, so that
mutually act on one another. This does not happen when God is the agent.
- (2) The patient is "at a distance" from the act it is to
be reduced to. This happens whenever there is a patient; the further removed
the patient is from the act, the more difficulty there is in the agent's
action. Hence, since pure non-being is further removed from act than any
matter that is the subject of any given contrary, it follows that more
power is required to produce something from nothing than is required to
produce one contrary from another in a subject.
- Entities are said to be made in an intelligence (angel) only with respect
to cognition and not with respect to an operative power. Hence, it is not
the case that entities are produced by God through the mediation of the
angels qua agents, but only through the mediation of the angels
qua knowers.
- Even though there cannot be a likeness of species or genus between
God and creatures, there can be a likeness of analogy, just like the likeness
between potency and act (i.e., being-in-potency and being-in-act) and between
substance and accident. In one sense, this is so insofar as created entities
imitate in their own way the ideas in the divine mind--just like an artifact
imitates the form which is in the mind of the artisan. In a second sense,
created thengs created things are assimilated to the divine nature itself
insofar as other entities come from the First Being, and other good things
from the First Goodness.
- However, the objection in question is irrelevant to the question. For
even if we assumed that creatures proceed from God through the mediation
of some created power, there would still be the problem of how that first
created power could come from God in the absence of any similarity of species
or genus.
- Augustine is there talking about the soul, which communicates esse
and species not in the manner of a creator (efficient cause) but in the
manner of a form (formal cause).
- Even though an angel does not know things by means of a cognition that
is received from the things, it still does not have to be the cause that
he knows them by means of a cognition which is a cause of the things. For
there is a sort of cognition that falls betwee these two sorts. For an
angel knows things by a natural cognition that is mediated by the likenesses
of things that have been infused into his intellect by the divine intellect.
Thus, his cognition is directed toward the things (ad rem) not in
the sense that it is a cause of things but rather in the sense that it
is a certain likeness of God's cognition, which is a cause of things.
- There are many grades or levels of educing things from potency into
act, since something can be educed from a more or less remote potency and
more or less quickly. Hence, it need not be the case that if an angel's
power exceeds that of a material nature, it can make something from pure
nothingness. Rather, it may be that an angel can educe something from potency
into act much more quickly than nature can.
- Corporeal light multiplies itself not through the creation of new light
but by diffusing itslf over matter. This cannot be said of an angel, since
an angel is a substance per se.
- There is an explicit error in the Liber de causis, viz., the
claim that lower creatures are created by God through the mediation of
higher creatures. So on this point one should not accept the authority
of this book.
- Some things are said to be impossible for someone to do not only because
of the distance between the termini but also because they cannot be done
at all. For instance, we say that God cannot be made from a body because
God cannot be made at all. It is in this sense that omnipotence cannot
be made from a finite power--not only because of the distance between the
termini (finite power and omnipotence), but also because
of the fact that omnipotence cannot be made from a finite power at all.
It is impossible for anything that is made to be Pure Act, since by the
very fact that it has its esse from another, it is imperfect in
power. And so it cannot be an infinite power.
- There is no greater power than the power to create; nor must the power
to create extend to communicating to some creature the power to create.
For this power is in no way communicable to a creature. For the fact that
something cannot be done may stem not only from the doer's lack of power
but sometimes from the fact that the very doing of the thing cannot be
done. For instance, God cannot make God, not because of any defect in his
power but because God cannot be made by anyone. Similarly, a finite power
to create cannot exist or be communicated to a creature, since the power
to create is infinite.
- Substantial form can be considered in two ways: (1) in one way, insofar
as it is in potency, and in this way it is co-created by God with the matter,
in the absence of any disposing action on the part of nature; (2) in a
second way, insofar as it is in act, and in this way it is not created
but rather educed from the potentiality of matter through a natural agent.
Hence, it is not necesary for nature to do anything dispositively in order
that something be created.
- However, since there is one natural form that is produced by creation,
viz., the rational soul, whose matter is disposed by nature, one should
note that there are two senses in which something can be said to be created,
given that creation eschews a subject: (1) Some things (e.g., angels) are
created without either a matter ex qua or a matter in qua,
and in this sort of creation nature does nothing dispositively; (2) there
are some things which, even if they have no presupposed matter ex qua,
do have a presupposed matter in qua, viz., human souls. And to the
extent that they do have have a matter in qua nature can operate
dispositively in their case--even though nature's action does not extend
to the very substance of what is created.
- In a work of justification a man does something as a minister only
through his celebrating the sacrament. Hence, since the sacraments are
said to justify instrumentally and dispositively, the previous answer (Reply
to F1) applies to this case as well. (Does St. Thomas later change
his mind about this?)
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