Phil 527:  AQUINAS AND SUAREZ ON CREATION
Freddoso
Decio 324/631-7327
E-mail: Alfred.J.Freddoso.1@nd.edu
Home page: http://www.nd.edu/~afreddos

Description of Course ----Texts ----Requirements ----Tentative Outline ----Course Handouts


Description of Course:  An exploration of the central metaphysical
questions involved in the claim that God creates and conserves the
entities in the world ex nihilo. The main texts for the course will be
the treatment of creation found in St. Thomas's De Potentia Dei,
Summa Theologiae, and Summa Contra Gentiles, along with the
treatment of efficient causality, creation, and conservation in Francisco
Suarez's Disputationes Metaphysicae, especially Disputations 20-21
on creation and conservation. (Time permitting, we may also look into
the question of whether and how God is an immediate cause of every
creaturely action.)
Among the questions to be discussed: What is creation ex nihilo?
How does it differ from more mundane instances of efficient
causality? What sort of being, if any, is capable of creating? What
sort of power is the power to create? Must it be unlimited or could
there be a limited creative power? Can the power to create be
communicated to something that is itself created? Failing that, could a
creature at least serve as an instrumental cause of creation? Can it be
proved by natural reason that the world can be or is in fact created?
How does conservation differ from creation? Can created substances
at least conserve other created substances, even if they can't create
them?
Since the doctrine of creation is probably the best place to look at
the central core of St. Thomas's metaphysics, including the distinction
between esse and essentia, this course can serve as an introduction to
Thomistic metaphysics.

Texts:   All the following will be made available in English translation
in course packet #114 at the LaFortune Copy Shop:
St. Thomas Aquinas, De Potentia Dei:
Question 3: Of Creation, articles 1-8 and 13-17
Question 5: On the Preservation of Things by God, articles 1-4
St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae:
Book 1, Questions 44-46: Treatise on Creation
Book 1, Questions 104-105: On Conservation
St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Contra Gentiles
Book 2, Chapters 15-21: On the First Cause of Being Book 2, Chapters 32-38: On the Eternity of the World Book 3, Chapters 65-70: On Conservation and Concurrence

Francisco Suarez, Disputationes Metaphysicae


Requirements: 1 or 2 short papers and one mammoth research paper
(well, twenty pages or so), with a proposal and outline due about a
month before the end of the semester.
Disputation 17 (all): On the Efficient Cause in General Disputation 18, Section 10: Whether Action is the Proper Notion of Causing for an Efficient Cause-- That is, Its Causality Disputation 18, Section 11: Whether an Efficient Cause Corrupts or Destroys a Thing by Effecting Something, and How Disputation 20 (all): On the First Efficient Cause and on His First Action, Which is Creation Disputation 21 (all): On the First Efficient Cause and on His Second Action, Which is Conservation

Tentative Outline (page numbers are from the course packet):A.  EFFICIENT CAUSALITY IN GENERAL (3 weeks)

Weeks 1-2: The nature of efficient causality
Suarez, Disputationes Metaphysicae, disp. 17, section 1, pp. 137-140
Suarez, Disputationes Metaphysicae, disp. 18, sections 10 and 11, pp.
154-164

Week 3: The types of efficient causality
Suarez, Disputationes Metaphysicae, disp. 17, section 2, pp. 141-153

B. CREATION (7 weeks)

Weeks 4-5: On the possibility of and necessity for creation
Aquinas, Summa Theologiae 1, q. 45, aa. 1-2, pp. 80-82
Aquinas, De Potentia Dei, q. 3, aa. 1-2 & 5, pp. 2-8 & 17-18
Suarez, Disputationes Metaphysicae, disp. 20, section 1, pp. 165-195
Supplemental texts:
Aquinas, Summa Theologiae 1, q. 44, aa. 1-4, pp. 77-80
Aquinas, Summa Theologiae 1, q. 45, aa. 4 & 8, pp. 83 & 86
Aquinas, Summa Contra Gentiles 2, chap. 15-19, pp. 103-109

Weeks 6-7: Whether creation requires an infinite power or whether
instead the power to create can be communicated to a creature
Aquinas, De Potentia Dei, q. 3, a. 4, pp. 11-17
Suarez, Disputationes Metaphysicae, disp. 20, sections 2-3, pp. 196-
248
Supplemental texts:
Aquinas, Summa Theologiae 1, q. 45, a. 5, pp. 83-85
Aquinas, Summa Contra Gentiles 2, chaps. 20-21, pp. 109-112

Week 8: The subject and ontological status of the action of creating
Aquinas, De Potentia Dei, q. 3, a. 3, pp. 8-11
Suarez, Disputationes Metaphysicae, disp. 20, section 4, pp. 249-283
Supplemental Texts:
Aquinas, Summa Theologiae 1, q. 45, a. 3, pp. 82-83

Weeks 9-10: Was creation eternal, or could it have been?
Aquinas, De Potentia Dei, q. 3, aa. 13-14, pp. 36-42
Suarez, Disputationes Metaphysicae, disp. 20, section 5, pp. 284-303
Supplemental Texts:
Aquinas, De Potentia Dei, q. 3, aa. 17, pp. 53-61
Aquinas, Summa Theologiae 1, q. 46, aa. 1-3, pp. 87-92
Aquinas, Summa Contra Gentiles 2, chaps. 32-38, pp. 113-124

C. CONSERVATION AND CREATION (4 weeks)

Weeks 11-12: The necessity for conservation
Aquinas, De Potentia Dei, q. 5, aa. 1-2, pp. 61-67
Aquinas, Summa Theologiae 1, q. 104, a. 1, pp. 93-94
Suarez, Disputationes Metaphysicae, disp. 21, section 1, pp. 351-369
Supplemental Texts:
Aquinas, De Potentia Dei, q. 5, aa. 3-4, pp. 67-76
Aquinas, Summa Theologiae 1, q. 104, aa. 3-4, pp. 95-96
Aquinas, Summa Contra Gentiles 3, chap. 65, pp. 125-127

Week 13: The difference between creation and conservation
Suarez, Disputationes Metaphysicae, disp. 21, section 2, pp. 370-382

Week 14: Is conservation, like creation, a divine prerogative?
Aquinas, Summa Theologiae 1, q. 104, a. 2, pp. 94-95
Suarez, Disputationes Metaphysicae, disp. 21, section 3, pp. 383-409