Of God and His Creatures5. As a work of art presupposes a work of nature, so a work of nature presupposes a work of God creating: for the material of artificial things is from nature, and the material of natural things is through creation of God. But artificial things are preserved in being by virtue of natural things, as a house by the solidity of its stones. Therefore natural things are not preserved in being otherwise than through the power of God.*
6. The impression made by an agent does not remain in the effect when the action of the agent ceases, unless that impression turns into and becomes part of the nature of the effect. Thus the forms and properties of things generated remain in them to the end, after the generation is done, because they are made natural to the things: in like manner habits are difficult to change, because they turn into nature. But dispositions, bodily impressions, and emotions, though they remain for some little while after the action of the agent, do not remain permanently: they find place in the subject as being on the way to become part of its nature.* But what belongs to the nature of a superior genus in no way remains after the action of the agent is over, as light does not remain in a transparent medium after the source of light is taken away.* But being is not the nature or essence of anything created, but of God alone (B. I, Chapp. XXI, XXII). Nothing then can remain in being when the divine activity ceases.*
7. Concerning the origin of things there are two theories, one of faith, that things had a first commencement, and were then brought into being by God; the other the theory of sundry philosophers, that things have emanated (fluxerint) from God from all eternity. On either theory we must say that things are preserved in being by God. For if things are brought into being by God after not being, the being of things must be consequent upon the divine will; and similarly their not being, because He has permitted things not to be when He willed and made things to be when He willed. Things therefore are, so long as He wills them to be. His will then is the upholder of creation. On the other hand, if things have emanated from God from all eternity, it is impossible to assign any time or instant in which first they emanated from God. Either then they were never produced by God at all, or their being is continually coming forth from God so long as they exist.
Hence it is said: Bearing up all things by the word of his power (Heb. i, 3). And Augustine says (De Gen. ad lit. iv, 12): "The power of the Creator, and the might of the Almighty and All-containing, is the cause of the permanence of every creature. If this power ever ceased from governing creation, all the brave show of creatures would at once cease, and all nature would fall to nothing. It is not like the case of one who has built a house, and goes away, and still the structure remains, when his work has ceased and his presence is withdrawn. The world could not endure for the twinkling of an eye, if God retired from the government of it."
Hereby is excluded the theory of some Doctors of the Law of the Moors, who, by way of sustaining the position that the world needs the preserving hand of God, have supposed all forms to be accidents,* and that no accident lasts for two successive instants, the consequence being that the formation of things is always in the making, -- as though a thing needed no efficient cause except while it is in the making. Some of them are further said to hold that the indivisible atoms,* out of which they say that all substances are composed, -- which atoms, according to them, alone are indestructible, -- could last for some short time, even though God were to withdraw His guidance from the world. Some of them further say that things would not cease to be but for God causing in them an accident of 'ceasing.'* All which positions are manifestly absurd.
3.64 : That God governs things by His Providence
3.66 : That nothing gives Being except in so much as it acts in the Power of God