Chapter 045 - The Mode of Emanation of Things from the First Principle

To create is to make from nothing; for if we consider the emanation of all being from the First Principle, it is impossible to conceive of being as pre-existent as regards such emanation. Therefore creation from nothing is not only possible, but necessary; for, if anything were presupposed, it would follow that something existed of which God was not the Cause; whereas it has been already proved that there is nothing which He has not produced.

Something uncreated is admitted of such creation according to relation only; for God, when He creates, produces things without movement or change, as Universal Cause, which does not occur with particular causes: and if we subtract motion from that which is active and passive, nothing remains except relation; therefore creation, in the creature, is nothing but a certain relation to the Creator, as to the Principle of its being.

And because to be created is to be something made, and to be made is to bear relation to the essence of things, created things are, properly speaking, substances which may be simple or composite. Accidents are said to have being, not as though they existed by themselves, but inasmuch as something coexists in regard of them; thus they are spoken of as coexistent and concreated.

Creation is the act of God alone, for the most universal effects must be referred to the most Universal Cause, and Being is the most universal of all effects. To produce Being absolutely belongs, therefore, to God, and we must reject the opinion of the Master of the Sentences that God can communicate to creatures the power of creating, or create through their ministry, not by His own authority. This opinion cannot be maintained; for the second or instrumental cause does not participate in the action of the superior cause unless it contribute something of its own, by way of disposition, towards the effect of the principal agent; having no proper action, its action would be evidently useless. We may, indeed, say that an axe, which cuts the wood, produces a bench, which is nevertheless the effect of the principal agent; but the subject matter of creation is that which is presupposed to everything else, namely, absolute Being, therefore nothing could act by way of disposition towards it or be instrumental in it. And since that which is created is not made out of anything presupposed, which could be disposed by the action of an instrumental agent, it is eminently improper to say of a body that it creates; for bodies do not act except as they are influenced or moved, and suppose something pre-existing, which is contrary to the conception of creation.

Creation does not belong to any One of the Divine Persons alone, but is common to the whole Trinity; for to create is, properly speaking, to cause the being of things, and therefore pertains to God according to His Being, which is common to the whole Trinity. And the Procession of the Divine Persons is the Cause of creation; for God works by Intellect and Love to something related. Thus we attribute to the Father the Power manifested in creation; to the Son the Wisdom by which He operates intellectually; and to the Holy Ghost Goodness, to which belongs the government which conducts everything to its proper end.

A representation of the Trinity is found in all creatures by mode of vestige; for every effect represents its cause; but diversely - some representing only the causality of the cause and not its form (as smoke that of fire), which is called the representation of vestiges. Others represent the cause according to a similitude of form, as a statue of Mercury represents Mercury, which is the representation of the image. In rational creatures, in whom there is intellect and will, we find a representation of the Trinity by way of image, inasmuch as we find in them the word conceived and love proceeding, by means of which we understand the Processions of the Divine Persons; while in every creature there is a representation of the Trinity by way of vestiges, for every creature has Being by which it subsists, Form by which it is determined in species, and Relation to something else. Substance represents Cause and Principle, and shows forth the Father, Who is not from Another. Form and species represent the Word; for Form, which is elaborated, involves the idea of art, while relation represents the Holy Ghost, Who is Love, inasmuch as the order which connects one thing with another is of the Will of the Creator.

Creation must not be confused with the works which nature does, for natural operations presuppose something; and to be made, or created, belongs properly to substantive things only, as has been explained above. Hence the being of form is not created but con created, while composition from pre-existing materials is proper to natural agents; and thus a thing goes forth into actual existence.