Article 1. The True Idea of Creation

1. The word to create can be taken in three ways. First, for any production whatsoever of a thing: thus, for example, of wisdom it is said in Sirach 24:14, "From the beginning and before the ages I was created." Second, one is said to be created who is raised to a higher state, in the way someone is said to be created a Cardinal, Bishop, and so forth. Thus in Ephesians 2:10 we are said to have been "created in Christ Jesus in good works." Third, more properly, it signifies to make something out of nothing: thus Psalm 148:5 says, "He commanded, and they were created"; and Genesis 1:1, "In the beginning God created heaven and earth."

In this proper sense creation is taken here; and accordingly it can be defined as: the production of a thing out of nothing, or the production of being insofar as it is being - or, as St. Thomas says, Summa Theologiae I, q. 65, a. 3, corpus, "the production of some thing according to its whole substance, with nothing presupposed." By weighing each word of the definition, the concept of creation will be had sufficiently clearly.

2. Therefore it is said, first, that creation is a production. This word, in the definition given, holds the place of the proximate genus, for creation is a certain species of effecting. But it belongs to every effecting that something come to be which previously was not; for what already is does not come to be. "But that which proceeds," says St. Thomas, Summa Theologiae I, q. 45, a. 1, corpus, "according to a particular emanation is not presupposed to that emanation; just as, if a man is generated, a man did not previously exist, but a man comes to be from non-man, and white from non-white." Hence whatever comes to be is produced, as it is customary to say, from the nothing of itself: not because in every effecting nothing of the produced thing, no part of it, no subject preexists; but because the whole thing, precisely as it is the terminus of the effecting, did not exist before.

3. Now just as, generally, what comes to be is not in act before it comes to be, so, if the question concerns the emanation of some thing from a particular cause, before it comes to be it must be in potency. "That which is generated," says St. Thomas, De potentia, q. 3, a. 8, corpus, "must preexist in potency and not in act; for if it did not preexist in potency, it would be made from nothing; but if it preexisted in act, it would not be made, because what is does not come to be." Hence the scholastic Doctors placed privation among the principles of natural things; and privation is not pure non-being, but non-being with an aptitude for being. And indeed it is a principle of generation, not after the manner of an influencing part, but after the manner of a terminus which is left behind, or of the terminus from which.

4. But since the effectings of particular causes are diverse - generation, alteration, augmentation, and transfer from place to place - diverse potencies to being can also be distinguished. Cardinal Toletus explains this well, in Reeb, Thesaurus Philosophiae, p. 190: "Observe, therefore, that act is opposed to potency, so that that is said to be in act which is; that is said to be in potency which is not, but can be. We find, moreover, a fourfold potency in things, and consequently a fourfold act. The first potency is that of generation, according to which something is said to be able to receive the being which it does not have. The second is that of augmentation, according to which it can acquire the quantity which it lacks; after it has this quantity, it is said to be in act with respect to such potency. The third is that of alteration, according to which something can receive in itself some accident, whether spiritual or corporeal; once this is acquired, it is said to be in such act. The fourth is toward place, to which it can be moved. According to these acts and potencies, philosophers have found four grades of beings. The first is of those things which are in every potency, such as substances before they are brought to birth. The second is of those things which have already been produced, but do not yet have their due quantity and quality; such are imperfect living things not yet brought to growth, which are also receptive of qualities and mutable according to place. The third is of those things which lack a twofold potency, namely to being and to quantity, since they already are and have their due quantity; nevertheless they remain in potency to accidents and other qualities, and to local motion. The fourth is of those things which are in no potency, but in every act," etc.

5. Whatever the potency to being and the privation may be, however, it always requires some subject in which it exists; and consequently, whatever the effecting of a particular cause may be, since some potency is always presupposed to it, some subject is also always presupposed, from which it draws forth the effect. Hence some have distinguished between nothing, which is pure negation, and nothing, which is negation in a subject. The former is had when no subject is present from which and in which the effect is produced; the latter, when a subject of this kind is present. Hence they say that emanation from a particular cause supposes privative nothing, but that the first emanation from the universal cause supposes nothing which is pure negation; or, what is the same thing, that an effect produced in the first mode is from the nothing of itself only, but in the other mode is from the nothing both of itself and of a subject.

6. It is said, second, that creation is production out of nothing. That phrase out of nothing, in the definition of creation, holds the place of the ultimate difference, by which creation is distinguished from all other species of effecting. From what has been said, however, it is clear: first, that out of nothing here signifies out of the nothing both of itself and of the subject; second, that it does not signify the negation of an efficient cause. For since creation is a certain production, it is as impossible that something be created out of nothing with respect to an efficient cause as that there be an effect without a cause.

7. But three additional points are to be noted here. First, when a preexisting subject from which and in which a thing comes to be is excluded from creation, and consequently the potency of the effect to being before it comes to be, this must be understood of real physical potency. For if the discussion concerns that objective potency which is the possibility of the thing to be made, this is not excluded, but presupposed, as will be clear below, where the exemplary cause of creation is treated.

Second, the preposition from (out of nothing) can signify either an order of succession between an earlier and a later terminus, as when it is said that from a sick man a healthy man comes to be, that is, he was previously sick and now is healthy; or dependence upon a material cause, as when it is said that from marble a statue is made. That preposition carries both meanings in the definition of creation, yet in such a way that the order of succession is affirmed at least according to our mode of conceiving, while a material cause is excluded. "When it is said," says St. Thomas, Summa Theologiae I, q. 45, a. 1, ad 3, "that something is made out of nothing, this preposition from does not designate a material cause, but only order: as when it is said, from morning comes midday, that is, after morning comes midday. But it must be understood that this preposition from can either include the negation imported in what I call nothing, or be included by it. If in the first mode, then the order remains affirmed, and the order of that which is to the preceding non-being is shown. But if the negation includes the preposition, then the order is denied, and the sense is: It is made out of nothing, that is, it is not made from something; just as, if one should say, This man speaks about nothing, because he does not speak about anything. And in both ways it is verified when it is said that something is made out of nothing. But in the first mode this preposition from imports order, as was said. In the second mode it imports the relation of a material cause which is denied."

Third, St. Thomas's meaning is not that there is a real order between nothing and the whole thing which is produced; for nothing cannot in reality have an order to anything, or really precede, since it is nothing. Rather, St. Thomas means only that there is a certain order between nothing and the thing according to our mode of understanding; namely, we conceive nothing itself as the terminus from which of the production of the thing that is created. Hence it is clear how shamefully they err who, in order to attack the possibility of creation, say that nothing cannot be converted into reality; for we in no way admit this conversion.

8. It is said, third, that creation is the production of a thing out of nothing. From what has been said, it is clear, first, that the word thing here signifies the whole reality of the effect. Hence the Vatican Council, in the Constitution Dei Filius, canon 5 on chapter I, says: "If anyone does not confess that the world and all things which are contained in it, both spiritual and material, were produced by God out of nothing according to their whole substance, let him be anathema." In order that this may be better understood, it must be known that among the other species of effecting, as we have said, generation is also numbered. But the Scholastics commonly took generation not only in the strict sense, insofar as it denotes the origin of a living thing from a joined living principle unto a likeness of nature, but also in a broad sense, insofar as it denotes the action by which one created substance produces another. But the production of a substance by a created cause always supposes a subject from which the substantial form is educed; according to the wholly common doctrine of the Scholastics, it supposes prime matter, which is not a substance but a substantial element, of itself in potency to being this or that substance through the determination which it will receive from the form with which it makes one composite substance. Therefore there is no generation which produces the whole substance, or all its parts and from no subject. Creation, by contrast, is the production of a thing according to its whole substance. "Therefore this," says St. Thomas, Summa Theologiae I, q. 44, a. 2, corpus, "which is the cause of things insofar as they are beings, must be the cause of things not only according as they are such through accidental forms, nor according as they are these things through substantial forms, but also according to everything that pertains to their being in whatever way. And thus it is necessary to posit prime matter also as created by the universal cause of beings." It is clear, second, why creation is also called the production of being insofar as it is being. "Hence," says the same holy Doctor, q. 45, a. 1, corpus, "if the emanation of the whole universal being from the first principle is considered, it is impossible that any being be presupposed to this emanation. But nothing is the same as no being. Therefore, just as the generation of a man is from non-being, which is non-man, so creation, which is the emanation of the whole of being, is from non-being, which is nothing."

9. But in order that what the word thing properly imports in the definition of creation may become better known, the doctrine of St. Thomas, Summa Theologiae I, q. 45, a. 4, must be recalled, where he teaches that to be created is proper to subsistent things, whether they are simple or composite. The sense of this assertion is not that material substantial forms, or forms dependent upon matter, accidents, and so forth, are not produced out of nothing either mediately or immediately; for this openly conflicts not only with the doctrine of St. Thomas, but also with faith. Rather, the sense is that, since these are not per se and according to themselves, they can indeed be said to be concreated with the composite of which that form is a part, or with the subject in which the accident inheres, but the proper terminus of creation is the subsisting composite itself.

The holy Doctor proves the assertion thus: "To be created is a certain coming-to-be, as has been said. But coming-to-be is ordered to the being of a thing. Hence coming-to-be and being-created properly belong to those things to which being belongs. Now this properly belongs to subsistent things, whether they are simple, as separate substances are, or composite, as material substances are; for being properly belongs to that which has being and which is subsistent in its being. But forms, accidents, and other things of this kind are not called beings as though they themselves were, but because by them something is; thus whiteness is called a being for this reason, that its subject is white. Hence, according to the Philosopher, an accident is more properly called 'of a being' than a being. Therefore, just as accidents, forms, and things of this kind, which do not subsist, are more coexistent things than beings, so they ought rather to be called concreated than created. Properly, however, subsistent things are created."

As is clear, according to St. Thomas, substantial forms dependent upon matter, accidents, and so forth, although they are a certain true reality, nevertheless do not have the perfect notion of being. Those who concede this, I do not know how they can attribute proper existence to the said forms, as though in one composite being there were several existences. This is confirmed by some in this way: what is created depends upon the Creator in such a way that it depends upon no other in any other genus of cause; but substantial forms of the sort under discussion, accidents, and so forth, depend, as is clear, upon a material cause; therefore. It is astonishing that some press this one argument in the present matter, and then assert that the souls of brute animals are properly created, although it is certain that the human soul is a substance so independent of matter that it can be and operate without it; and by this immateriality especially its essential difference from the soul of a brute animal is shown. See Sylvius on the cited place of St. Thomas.

10. From what has been said it is easily clear, first, that creation is not properly a mutation. "Creation," says St. Thomas, Summa Theologiae I, q. 45, a. 2, ad 2, "is not a mutation except according to the mode of understanding only. For it belongs to the notion of mutation that something the same have itself differently now and before. For sometimes, indeed, it is the same being in act having itself differently now and before, as in movements according to quantity and quality; but sometimes it is the same being in potency only, as in mutation according to substance, whose subject is matter. But in creation, through which the whole substance of a thing is produced, there cannot be taken something the same having itself differently now and before, except according to the intellect only; as if some thing is understood previously not to have been at all, and afterwards to be." See also De potentia, q. 3, a. 2, and Contra Gentiles II, c. 17.

Second, it is clear how the generation of the Word cannot be called creation. For since the Son of God is coeternal with the Father, there is no order of succession of his being after nothing, not even according to our mode of understanding; and although he is not produced from any matter or subject, he is nevertheless begotten of the very substance of the Father.

Third, although transubstantiation is sometimes called creation by the Fathers, this is a less proper denomination. For in transubstantiation the body of Christ is not produced out of nothing, but the preexisting bread is converted into the body of Christ. See Summa Theologiae III, q. 75, a. 8.

11. It is not necessary here to bring forward testimonies in order to show that the concept of creation handed down by us is contained in Catholic doctrine; for we shall present them where we establish the fact of creation.