SCG II, Chapter 15:  That God is to all things the Cause of their being

1.  Having shown (Chap VI) that God is to some things the cause of their being, we must further show that nothing out of God has being except of Him. Every attribute that attaches to anything otherwise than as constituting its essence, attaches to it through some cause, as whiteness to man. To be in a thing independently of causation is to be there primarily and immediately, as something ordinary (per se) and essential. It is impossible for any one attribute, attaching to two things, to attach to each as constituting its essence. What is predicated as constituent of a thing's essence, has no extension beyond that thing: as the having three angles together equal to two right angles has no extension beyond 'triangle,' of which it is predicated, but is convertible with 'triangle.' Whatever then attaches to two things, cannot attach to them both as constituting the essence of each. It is impossible therefore for any one attribute to be predicated of two subjects without its being predicated of one or the other as something come there by the operation of some cause: either one must be the cause of the other, or some third thing must be cause of both. Now 'being' is predicated of everything that is. It is impossible therefore for there to be two things, each having being independently of any cause; but either these things must both of them have being by the operation of a cause, or one must be to the other the cause of its being. Therefore everything which in any way is, must have being from that which is uncaused; that is, from God (B. I, Chap. XV).

2.  What belongs to a thing by its nature, and is not dependent on any causation from without, cannot suffer diminution or defect. For if anything essential is withdrawn from or added to nature, that nature, so increased or diminished, will give place to another. If on the other hand the nature is left entire, and something else is found to have suffered diminution, it is clear that what has been so diminished does not absolutely depend on that nature, but on some other cause, by removal of which it is diminished. Whatever property therefore attaches to a thing less in one instance than in others, does not attach to that thing in mere virtue of its nature, but from the concurrence of some
other cause. The cause of all effects in a particular kind will be that whereof the kind is predicated to the utmost. Thus we see that the hottest body is the cause of heat in all hot bodies, and the brightest body the cause of brightness in all bright bodies. But God is in the highest degree 'being' (B. I, Chap. XIII). He then is the cause of all things whereof 'being' is predicated.*

3. The order of causes must answer to the order of effects, since effects are proportionate to their causes. Hence, as special effects are traced to special causes, so any common feature of those special effects must be traced to some common cause. Thus, over and above the particular causes of this or that generation, the sun is the universal cause of all generation; and the king is the universal cause of government in his kingdom, over the officials of the kingdom, and also over the officials of individual cities. But being is common to all things. There must then be over all causes some Cause to whom it belongs to give being.

4. What is by essence, is the cause of all that is by participation, as fire is the cause of all things fiery, as such. But God is being by His essence because He is pure being; while every other being is being by participation, because there can only be one being that is its own existence (B. I, Chapp. XXII, XLII). God therefore is cause of being to all other beings.

5. Everything that is possible to be and not to be, has some cause: because, looked at by itself, it is indifferent either way; and thus there must be something else that determines it one way. Hence, as a process to infinity is impossible, there must be some necessary being that is cause of all things which are possible to be and not to be.

6. God in His actuality and perfection includes the perfections of all things (B. I, Chap. XXVIII); and thus He is virtually all. He is therefore the apt producing cause of all.

This conclusion is confirmed by divine authority: for it is said: Who made heaven and earth, the sea, and all things that are therein (Ps. cxlv, 6). And, All things were made by him, and without him was made nothing (John ~, 3). And From whom are all things, by whom are all things, in (unto) whom are all things (Rom. xi, 16).

SCG II, Chapter 16:  That God has brought things into being out of nothing

1. To every effect produced by God there is either something pre-existent or not. If not, the thesis stands, that God produces some effect out of nothing pre-existent. If anything pre-exists, we either have a process to infinity, which is impossible, or we must come to something primitive, which does not presuppose anything else previous to it. Now this primitive something cannot be God Himself, for God is not the material out of which anything is made (B. I, Chap. XVI): nor can it be any other being, distinct from God and uncaused by God (Chap. XV).

3. The more universal the effect, the higher the cause: for the higher the cause, the wider its range of efficiency. Now being is more universal than motion. Therefore above any cause that acts only by moving and transmitting must be that cause which is the first principle of being; and that we have shown to be God (B. I, Chap. XIII). God therefore does not act merely by moving and transmuting: whereas every cause that can only bring things into being out of pre-existing material acts merely in that way, for a thing is made out of material by movement or some change.

4. It is not proper to the universal cause of being, as such, to act only by movement and change: for not by movement and change is being, as such, made out of not-being, as such, but 'being this' is made out of 'not being this.' But God is the universal principle of being (Chap. XV). Therefore it is not proper to Him to act only by movement or change, or to need pre-existent material to make anything.

5. Every agent has a term of action like itself, for its acts inasmuch as it is in actuality. Given then an agent in actuality by some form inherent in it, and not to the whole extent of its substance,* it will be proper to such an agent to produce its effect by causing a form in some way inherent in matter. But God is in actuality, not by anything inhering in Him, but to the whole extent of His substance (B. I, Chap. XVIII). Therefore the proper mode of divine action is to produce the whole subsistent thing, and not a mere inherent thing, as is form in matter.

10. Between actuality and potentiality such an order obtains, that, though in one and the same being, which is sometimes in potentiality sometimes in actuality, potentiality is prior in time to actuality (although actuality is prior in nature), yet, absolutely speaking, actuality must be prior to potentiality, as is clear from this, that potentiality is not reduced to actuality except by some actual being. But matter is being in potentiality.* Therefore God, first and pure actuality, must be absolutely prior to matter, and consequently cause thereof.

This truth divine Scripture confirms, saying: In the beginning God created heaven and earth (Gen. i,1). For to create is nothing else than to bring a thing into being without any pre-existent material.

Hereby is confuted the error of the ancient philosophers, who supposed no cause at all for matter, since in the actions of particular agents they always saw some matter pre-existent to every action. Hence they took up the common opinion, that nothing is made out of nothing, which indeed is true of the actions of particular agents. But they had not yet arrived at a knowledge of the universal agent, the active cause of all being, whose causative action does not necessarily suppose any pre-existent material.

1. Every movement or change is the actualisation of something that was in potentiality, as such: but in this action of creation there is nothing pre-existent in potentiality to become the object of the action.

2. The extremes of movement or change fall under the same order,* being either of the same kind, as contraries are, or sharing one common potentiality of matter. But nothing of this can be in creation, to which no previous condition of things is supposed.

3. In every change or movement there must be something coming to be otherwise than as it was before. But where the whole substance of a thing is brought into being, there cannot be any permanent residuum, now in this condition, now in that: because such a residuum would not be produced, but presupposed to production.

Hence appears the futility of arguments against creation drawn from the nature of movement or change, -- as that creation must be in some subject, or that non-being must be transmuted into being: for creation is not a change, but is the mere dependence of created being on the principle by which it is set up, and so comes under the category of relation: hence the subject of creation may very well be said to be the thing created.* Nevertheless creation is spoken of as a 'change' according to our mode of conceiving it, inasmuch as our understanding takes one and the same thing to be now non-existent and afterwards existing. If Creation (creaturedom) is a relation, it is evidently some sort of reality; and this reality is neither uncreated, nor created by a further act of creation. For since the created effect really depends on the Creator, this relation must be a certain reality. Now every reality is brought into being by God; and therefore also this reality is brought into being by God, and yet was not created by any other creation than that of the first creature, because accidents and forms do not exist by themselves, and therefore neither are they terms of separate creation, since creation is the production of
substantial being; but as they are 'in another,' so are they created in the creation of other things.

1. Succession is proper to movement. But creation is not movement. Therefore there is in it no succession.

2. In every successive movement there is some medium between the extremes. But between being and not-being, which are the extremes in creation, there can be no medium, and therefore no succession.

3. In every making, in which there is succession, the process of being made is before the state of achieved completion. But this cannot happen in creation, because, for the process of being made to precede the achieved completion of the creature, there would be required some subject in which the process might take place. Such a subject cannot be the creature itself, of whose creation we are speaking, because that creature is not till the state of its achieved completion is realised. Nor can it be the Maker, because to be in movement is an actuality, not of mover, but of moved. And as for the process of being made having for its subject any pre-existing material, that is against
the very idea of creation. Thus succession is impossible in the act of creation.

4. Successive stages in the making of things become necessary, owing to defect of the matter, which is not sufficiently disposed from the first for the reception of the form. Hence, when the matter is already perfectly disposed for the form, it receives it in an instant. Thus because a transparent medium is always in final disposition for light, it lights up at once in the presence of any actually shining thing. Now in creation nothing is prerequisite on the part of the matter, nor is anything wanting to the agent for action. It follows that creation takes place in an instant: a thing is at once in the act of being created and is created, as light is at once being shed and is shining.

1. Since the order of actions is according to the order of agents, and the action is nobler of the nobler agent, the first and highest action must be proper to the first and highest agent. But creation is the first and highest action, presupposing no other, and in all others presupposed. Therefore creation is the proper action of God alone, who is the highest agent.

2. Nothing else is the universal cause of being but God (Chap. XV).

3. Effects answer proportionally to their causes. Thus actual effects we attribute to actual causes, potential effects to potential causes, particular effects to particular causes, and universal effects to universal causes. Now the first thing caused is 'being,' as we see by its presence in all things. Therefore the proper cause of 'being,' simply as such, is the first and universal agent, which is God. Other agents are not causes of 'being,' simply as such, but causes of 'being this,' as 'man' or 'white': but 'being,' simply as such, is caused by creation, which presupposes nothing, because nothing can be outside of the extension of 'being,' simply as such. Other productions result in 'being this,' or 'being of this quality': for out of pre-existent being is made 'being this,' or 'being of this quality.'*

6. Every agent that acts as an instrument completes the action of the principal agent by some action proper and connatural to itself, as a saw operates to the making of a stool by cutting. If then there be any nature that operates to creation as an instrument of the prime creator, this being must operate through some action due and proper to its own nature. Now the effect answering to the proper action of an instrument is prior in the way of production to the effect answering to the principal agent; hence it is that the final end answers to the principal agent:* for the cutting of the wood is prior to the form of the stool. There must then be some effect due to the proper operation of the instrument used for creation; and this effect must be prior in the way of production to 'being': for 'being' is the effect answering to the action of the prime creator. But that is impossible: for the more general is prior in the way of generation to the more particular.*

Hereby is destroyed the error of certain philosophers, who said that God created the first spirit, and by it was created the second, and so in order to the last.

1. As creation is the work of God alone, so whatever beings are producible only by creation must be immediately produced by Him. Such are all spirits,* the existence of which for the present let us suppose,* and likewise all bodily matter. These several existences are immediate effects of creative power. Now power is not determined and limited to one effect, when it is productive of several effects immediately, and that not out of any pre-existent material. I say 'immediately,' because if the production were through intermediate agents, the diversity of effects might be ascribed to those intermediate causes. I say again 'not out of any pre-existent material,' because the same agent by the same action causes different effects according to the difference of material. God's power then is not determined and limited to one effect.

2. Every perfect active power is co-extensive with and covers all cases of its own proper effect: thus perfect building power would extend to everything that could be called a house. But the divine power is of itself the cause of being, and being is its proper effect. Therefore that power extends to all things that are not inconsistent with the idea of being: for if the divine power were available only for one particular effect, it would not be the ordinary cause of being, as such, but cause of 'this being.' Now what is inconsistent with the idea of 'being' is the opposite of 'being,' which is 'not-being.' God then can do all things that do not include in themselves the element of not-being, that is to say, that do not involve a contradiction.

3. Every agent acts inasmuch as it is in actuality. According then to the mode of actuality of each agent in the mode of its active power. Now God is perfect actuality, having in Himself the perfections of all beings (B. I, Chap. XXVIII): therefore His active power extends to all things that are not inconsistent with actual being.

5. There are three ways in which an effect may not be in the power of an agent. In one way, because it has no affinity or likeness to the agent, for every agent acts to the production of its own likeness somehow:* hence man cannot be the parent of brute or plant, though he can be parent of man, who is more than they. In another way, on account of the excellence of the effect, transcending the compass of the active power: thus the active power of matter cannot produce spirit. In a third way, on account of the material being determined to some effect, and the agent having no power over it: thus a carpenter cannot make a saw, because his art gives him no power over iron. But in none of these ways can an effect be withdrawn from the divine power: not for the unlikeness of the effect, since every being, in so much as it has being, is like God (Chap. XV): nor again for the excellence of the effect, since God is above all in goodness and perfection (B. I, Chapp. XXVIII, XLI): nor lastly for the defect of the material, since God in His action needs no material (Chap. XVI).

This also is taught by divine Scripture as a tenet of faith. I am God Almighty, walk before me and be perfect (Gen. xvii, 1): I know that thou canst do all things (Job xlii, 2): No word shall be impossible with God (Luke i, 37).

Hereby is excluded the error of sundry philosophers, who have laid it down that God can do nothing except according to the course of nature. On such it is said: As though the Almighty had no power, they reckoned of him (Job xxii, 17).