Whether Creation is Something Real in the Creature

I. Preliminaries

The question has to do with the ontological category and status of the act of creation, and here we find a disagreement between Suarez and St. Thomas. At the beginning of DM 20.4 Suarez lists three positions on this question:

1. Thomists: Creation conceived of as an action (active creation) is the act of the divine will and hence is "in" God, whereas creation conceived of as a real relation of dependence (passive creation) is a categorial relation that inheres in the thing created.

2. Nominalists: God's act of creation exists outside of God but is not something distinct from the thing created. Rather, it just is the creature itself insofar as it depends on God and terminates God's action.

3. Suarez: God's act of creation exists outside of God and is a mode of dependence that the effect or terminus of the act has on God. (In effect, Suarez just applies his formal analysis of an action as such to the case of creation. So any categorial relation inherent in the creature that results from creation is something that, strictly speaking, falls outside of the notion of the action of creation.)

We will now look at St. Thomas's discussion of the issue in DP 3.3.

II. Arguments for the negative answer (De Potentia 3.3):

A. From the recipient of the action:

A1. As is claimed in the Liber de Causis, whatever is received is received in the manner of that which receives it. But when God creates, his action is received in absolute non-being--for in creating God makes something ex nihilo. Therefore, creation does not posit anything real in the creature.

B. From the impossibility of an infinite regress:

B1. Everything that exists in reality is either the Creator or a creature. But creation is not the Creator, since if it were, it would have existed from eternity; nor is it a creature, since if it were, it would be created by means of a creation and that action would likewise need to be created by means of a creation, and so on ad infinitum. Therefore, creation is not some entity in reality.

C. From the fact that the act of creation does not satisfy the conditions for being an accident:

C1. Everything that exists is either a substance or an accident. But creation is not a substance, since it is neither matter nor a form nor a composite; neither is it an accident, since an accident follows upon a substance, whereas creation is naturally prior to the thing created. Therefore, creation is not any entity in reality.

C2. The creation stands to the thing created as generation stands to the thing generated. But the thing generated is the terminus of the generation rather than its subject--primary matter is the subject. Therefore, the thing created is not the subject of creation. Nor can one claim that its subject is some matter, since what is created is not created out of any matter. Therefore, creation has no subject, and so it is not an accident. But it is obvious that it is not a substance. Therefore, it is not anything at all in reality.

D. From the fact that creation does not satisfy the conditions for being a relation:

D1. If creation is something real, then since it is not a change, it would have to be a relation of some sort. But it is not a relation, since it cannot belong to any of the species of relation. For an absolute being is neither the subject of nor adequate to the absolute non-being which would serve as the terminus of the relation. Therefore, creation is not any entity in reality.

D2. If creation connoted a relation of the created entity to God, from whom that entity has esse, then since this relation would exist in the creature at all times--not just when it begins to exist, but for as long as it exists--it follows that the thing would be continually created. But this is absurd. Therefore, creation is not a relation.

D3. Every relation that really exists within things derives from something which is diverse from the relation itself. For instance, equality derives from quantity and similarity derives from quality. Hence, if creation is a relation that really exists in the creature, then it must differ from that from which the relation is derived. But the latter is that which is acquired through creation. It follows that that creation itself would not be derived from creation, and so it follows that creation would be something uncreated--which is impossible.

E. From the fact that creation cannot fall under any category (most general genus) of being

E1. Every change is reduced to the genus which terminates it; for instance, alteration is reduced to the genus of quality and augmentation to the genus of quantity. (Physics 3: There are as many species of motion as there are species of being.) But creation is terminated in the genus of substance, and yet one cannot claim that it is in the genus of substance, as we saw above. So it seems that it is no real entity.

II. St. Thomas's response in DP 3.3:

Some have claimed that since creation lies between the Creator and the creature, it is itself neither the Creator nor the creature. But everything outside of God has its being from God, and so creation must be a creature. Again, some have claimed that creation is nothing on the side of the creature. But this seems wrong. For whenever things are related to one another in such a way that the one depends on the other but not vice versa a real relation is found in the dependent thing, whereas only a relation of reason is found in the thing on which it depends. (Example: act of knowing and thing known.) But a creature as such is related to the Creator and depends on the Creator, but not vice versa. Hence, the relation of the creature to the Creator must be a real relation.

We must distinguish between active creation and passive creation. Active creation designates God's action, which is his essence, along with a relation to the creature--not a real relation, but a conceptual relation. Passive creation cannot be a passion because creation is not a change; rather, it must fall under the category of relation irreducibly.

Here St. Thomas reasons by analogy with changes. In a real motion or change there are two `movements': (1) from one terminus (contrary) to the other and (2) from the agent to the patient. But these movements are different (a) during the motion and (b) at the end of the motion:

(1) (a) While the motion is still going on, that which is being moved recedes from the one terminus and approaches the other; but (b) at the end of the motion, the thing moved is no longer approaching the new form, but begins to be formed by it.
(2) (a) While the motion is still going on, the patient is being transformed by the agent; but (b) at the end of the motion the patient is no longer being transformed by the agent but instead acquires a certain relation to the agent insofar as it has esse from it and is now in some way similar to it. (For example, at the end of a generation, the thing generated acquires the relation being the offspring of with respect to the parents.)

In creation (a) drops out and only (b) is left. Thus, creation is none other than the relation of dependence on God, along with the connotation of a newness of being.

IV. Replies to the Objections from De Potentia 3.3:

To A1: In creation what receives God's action is not non-being but rather the thing created.

To B1: Active creation signifies the divine action taken with a certain relation, and so it is uncreated. Passive creation is a real relation signified in the manner of a chance by reason of the newness or beginning of what is imported. But this relation is a certain creature, taking `creature' for anything that comes from God. And there is no infinite regress, because the relation of creation is not referred to God by another real relation. On the other hand, if we take the term `creature' more strictly just for that which subsists, then the relation in question is not created but rather concreated--just like all accidents.

To C1: The relation in question is an accident, and considered in its own being, that is, as inhering in its subject, it is posterior to the thing created--even though it is not an accident that is caused by the prinicples of its subject. On the other hand, if we consider it according to its definition, then just as it arises from the agent's action, so too it is in some sense prior to the subject--just as the divine action itself is. [Editorial note: This seems like a rather desparate reply.]

To C2: In generation there is both a change and a relation. Thus, with respect to the change the subject is the matter and not the thing generated, whereas with respect to the relation the subject is thing generated itself. In creation there is just the relation and no change, properly speaking. And so the analogy fails.

To D1: The relation in question should not be conceived of as a relation of a being to a non-being, since such a relation cannot be real. Rather it is a relation of the created entity to God.

To D2: Creation involves the relation in question along with newness of being. Hence, it is not necessary that an entity be created whenever it exists, even though it is always related to God. Still, it is not absurd to say that just as air is illuminated by the sun for as long as the air is bright, so too a creature is made by God for as long as it has esse. In this matter the difference is merely a terminological one, depending on whether or not the term `creation' is taken to involve a newness of being.

To D3: That from which the relation of creation principally derives is the subsistent entity, from which the relation of creation, which is itself a creature, differs.

To E1: A motion is reduced to its terminus's genus insofar as it proceeds from potency to act. For within the motion itself the terminus of motion is in potency, and potency and act are reduced to the same genus. But in creation there is no procession from potency into act, and so the analogy does not hold.

IV. Suarez's discussion in DM 20.4

In his resolution of the question ( 11-23) Suarez makes four main assertions:

(1) A creature's dependence on God is something that really and instrinsically exists within the creature. (What Suarez has in mind here is not a categorial relation that results from the action, but rather the very emanation of the creature as the terminus of the act.)

(2) A creature's dependence on God is not wholly identical with the creature that serves as the terminus of the dependence; rather, it is something `in' the creature that is distinct in reality from the creature. (vs. Nominalists). Here Suarez argues that while each creature is essentially dependent on God in the sense that it cannot exist without some particular actual dependence on God, it is not the case that in the case of each creature there is some actual dependence that it has essentially and immutably. For it could have two different dependences at two different times.

(3) A creature's dependence on God is not really distinct from the terminus of the act and is not just a resultant relation; rather, it is a mode of the terminus that is, consequently, modally distinct from the terminus.

(4) A creature's dependence on God, while not being a change or passion, does have the true nature of a path or being-made and also the true nature of an emanation from God. And so it is God's action as well as the creature's dependence. (Notice that a path does not, strictly speaking, inhere in its terminus, but is rather terminated by it. So the dependence is a transcendental rather than categorial relation, and as such it is reduced to the category of its terminus.) In reply to St. Thomas's argument, Suarez denies that what is left over in an action once change is removed is a categorial relation of dependence. Rather, it is just the path to or emanation of the effect from the agent.