Article 4 — Whether any creature ought to be annihilated or even has been annihilated

The fourth point of inquiry is whether any creature ought to be annihilated or even has been annihilated. (Parallel texts: ST I.104.4; I.65.1, ad 1. See below: a. 9, ad 1.)

Obj. 1: And it seems that this is the case. For just as a finite power cannot move something over an infinite time, so by no finite power can a thing exist for an infinite time. Now, all corporeal power is finite, as is proved in Physics 8. (Aristotle, Physics 8.10, 266a20, b5.) Therefore, no body has the power to endure for an infinite time. But there are bodies that cannot be corrupted, because nothing is contrary to them, like the heavenly bodies. Therefore, at some time they must of necessity be annihilated.

Obj. 2: That which is for the sake of attaining an end is no longer needed where the end has been reached; this is clear with a ship, which is necessary that we may cross the sea but no longer after crossing the sea. Now, the corporeal creature was made for the sake of the spiritual, in order to help it to reach its end. When, therefore, the spiritual creatures arrive at their ultimate end, they no longer need corporeal creatures. Therefore, since there is nothing superfluous in God’s works, it would seem that, at the last end of all things, every corporeal creature will cease to exist.

Obj. 3: Nothing accidental is infinite. Now, existence is accidental to every creature, according to Avicenna; (Avicenna, The Metaphysics of the Healing 8.4.) therefore, Hilary also distinguishes God from his creatures by stating that existence is no accident in God. (Hilary of Poitiers, On the Trinity 7.11 (PL 10:207–8).) Therefore, no creature will endure into infinity, and all creatures will at some time fail.

Obj. 4: The end should correspond to the beginning. Now, creatures had their beginning after nothing had existed but God. Therefore, to this creatures will return in the end, which will be total nothingness.

Obj. 5: That which has no power to exist always cannot endure forever. But that which has not always existed has no power to exist always. Therefore, that which was not always cannot endure forever. But creatures did not always exist. Therefore, they cannot endure forever, and thus, they will at length be annihilated.

Obj. 6: Justice requires that if a man is ungrateful for a benefit bestowed or acquired, he should be deprived of it. Now, by committing mortal sin, man proved himself ungrateful. Therefore, justice demands that he be deprived of all the benefits he has received from God, among which is his very existence. Moreover, God’s judgment on sinners will be just, according to the Apostle (Rom 2:2). Therefore, they will be annihilated.

Obj. 7: The words of Jeremiah are to the point: correct me, O Lord, and yet with judgment and not in your fury, lest you bring me to nothing (10:24).

Obj. 8: It will be said, perhaps, that God’s punishments are even less severe than what is deserved, on account of his mercy, which, in the judgment of God, is always mingled with justice; thus, God does not exclude sinners entirely from a share in his benefits.

On the contrary, mercy is not shown to man by granting him what it were better for him not to have. But it were better for the damned in hell not to be at all than to be thus, as is evidenced by the words about Judas: it were better for him had that man not been born (Matt 26:24). Therefore, it is no part of God’s mercy that the damned be kept in existence.

Obj. 9: Things that have no matter as a part are altogether, that is, utterly, corrupted when they cease to be, (Aristotle, Metaphysics 3.4–5, 1000b23–1001a3, 1002a8–b11.) like accidents. Now, accidents frequently cease to exist. Therefore, some things are reduced to nothing.

Obj. 10: The Philosopher argues, in Physics 6, that if a continuous quantity is composed of indivisible parts, it must be divisible into indivisible parts. (Aristotle, Physics 6.1, 231b10–18; 6.4, 234a6; 6.6, 237b6–8.) From this we may infer that everything is resolved into the elements from which it exists. Now, all creatures exist from nothing. Therefore, all at some time will be resolved into nothing.

Obj. 11: It is written: the heavens shall pass away with great violence (2 Pet 3:10). But they cannot pass away by corruption so as to be changed into some other body, since they have no contrary. Therefore, they will pass away into nothing.

Obj. 12: Again, to the point are the words of Psalm 102:25–26: the heavens are the works of your hands: they shall perish, and of Luke 21:33: heaven and earth shall pass away.

On the contrary, it is written: the earth stands forever (Eccl 1:4); and again: I have learned that all the works which God has made continue forever (Eccl 3:14). Therefore, creatures will not be annihilated.

I answer that the universe of created things will never be annihilated. And although corporeal creatures have not always existed, they will nevertheless endure forever, as to their substance, although it has been maintained by some that in the final consummation of things all corruptible creatures will be reduced to non-being; this opinion has been ascribed to Origen, who, however, apparently does not assert it as his own but rather as a view held by others.

Yet we can draw the reason for this from two things.

First, from the divine will, on which the existence of creatures depends. For although, considered in itself, God’s will about creatures is open to opposite things, since it is not more bound to one alternative than to another, yet when a supposition has been made, it holds a certain necessity. For just as, in creatures, that which is open to opposite things is necessitated through a supposition being made (thus it is possible for Socrates to sit and not to sit, but while he sits it is necessary that he sit), so too the divine will which, considered in itself, can will either a certain thing or its opposite—for instance, to save or not to save Peter—cannot will not to save Peter so long as he wills to save him. And whereas God’s will is unchangeable, if it be supposed that he wills a certain thing at some time, on that supposition it is necessary that he will it always, although it is not necessarily if he will a thing to last for a time, that he also will it to last forever.

Now, he who wills a thing for its own sake wills that it always exist, for the very reason that he wills it for its own sake. For if he wills a thing to exist for a time and afterwards not to exist, he wills that thing to exist for the perfection of something else, and when this latter is perfected, he no longer needs that he was willing for the sake of perfecting it. Now, God wills the universe of creatures for its own sake, although he also wills its existence for his own sake; for these two are not incompatible with each other. For God wills creatures to exist for his goodness’ sake, namely, that they may imitate and reflect it, which they do inasmuch as from it they have their being and subsist in their own natures. Consequently, it amounts to the same thing whether we say that God made all things for his own sake or that he made creatures for the sake of their own existence, according to Wisdom 1:14, he created all things that they might be. Therefore, from the very fact that God made creatures, it is clear that he willed them to endure forever; the opposite of which, because his will is unchangeable, will never happen.

Second, from the very nature of things. For God fashioned each nature in such a way as not to deprive it of its property. Therefore, on the words of Romans 11:24, contrary to nature you were grafted, a Gloss says that God, who is the author of nature, does not act contrary to nature, (Glossa ordinaria 6, 150, at Romans 11:24 (PL 114:508).) although at times, as an argument for the faith, he performs in creatures something that surpasses nature. Now, it is a natural property of those immaterial things, which have no contrary, that they last forever; for in them there is no potency to non-existence, as we have shown above. Thus, just as he does not deprive fire of its natural inclination to rise, so neither does he deprive the aforesaid things of their everlastingness by reducing them to nothing.

Reply Obj. 1: According to the Commentator, on Metaphysics 11, although all potency residing in a body is finite, it does not follow that every body has a finite potency to exist, seeing that bodies that are naturally corruptible have no potency, finite or infinite, to exist but only to be moved. (Averroes, Commentary on the Metaphysics 11, comm. 41.) This solution, however, apparently is not relevant here; for potency to exist may be taken not only in the mode of a passive potency, which is on the side of the matter, but also in the mode of an active power, which is on the side of the form, which cannot be lacking to incorruptible things. For power of existence is present in a thing to the degree in which form is present in a thing; this is also why the Philosopher holds, in On the Heavens 1, that certain things have the power and potency to last forever. (Aristotle, On the Heavens, 1.4, 269a5; 1.27, 282a25–32.)

Accordingly, we reply otherwise. From the infinity of a thing’s time it is not shown to have infinity, unless it is measured by the time either through itself, as is motion, or accidentally, like the being of things that are subject to motion, which endure for a certain period of motion beyond which they cannot last. Now, the existence of a heavenly body is not affected by time or movement, since it is utterly unchangeable. Therefore, from the fact that the heavens last for an infinite time, its being does not have infinity, just as it exists altogether outside the continuity of time, for which reason theologians say that it is measured by aeviternity. Therefore, the heavens do not require an infinite power in order to last forever.

Reply Obj. 2: Just as one part of an army is ordered both to another part and to the general, so too the corporeal creature is ordered both to aiding in the perfection of the spiritual creature and to reflecting the divine goodness. The latter it will do forever, though it will cease to do the former.

Reply Obj. 3: If we speak of substantial existence, then existence is not described as an accident as though it were in the genus of accident (for it is the act of an essence), but by a kind of similitude; for like an accident, it is not part of the essence. And yet, even if it were in the genus of accident, nothing prevents it from lasting into infinity; for essential accidents are of necessity in their respective substances, and so too nothing hinders them from being in them forever. On the other hand, accidents that are present in their subjects accidentally are nowise everlasting by nature. However, the very existence of a substantial thing cannot be an accident of this sort, because it is the act of the essence.

Reply Obj. 4: Before things existed, there was no nature having everlastingness itself as a property, as there is a certain nature in things that have already been created. Moreover, it would conduce to a certain perfection of the spiritual creature that things did not always exist, since this expressly shows that God is the cause of things, while nothing useful would result if all things were annihilated. Hence, there is no likeness between the beginning and the end.

Reply Obj. 5: Those things that will last forever have the power to last forever, but they did not always have this power; therefore, they did not always exist.

Reply Obj. 6: Although in justice, God could withdraw existence and annihilate a creature that sins against him, yet it is a more becoming justice that he keep it in existence for punishment, and this for two reasons.

First, because in the former case justice would have no admixture of mercy, since nothing would remain to which he might show mercy, and yet, it is written that all the ways of the Lord are mercy and truth (Ps 25:10).

Second, because in the second case, justice is more in proportion with sin, and this in two respects.

In the first place, in the fault the will acts against God, while nature does not but observes the order implanted in it by God; therefore the punishment should be such as to afflict the will by hurting the nature which the will had abused, whereas if the creature were utterly annihilated, nature would be hurt indeed, but the will would not be afflicted.

In the second place, seeing that sin contains two things, turning away from the unchangeable good and turning toward a transient good, the turning away results from the turning toward; for no sinner intends to turn away from God, but seeks to be fulfilled by a temporal good, which is incompatible with fulfillment in God. Therefore, since the pain of loss corresponds to the aversion of fault, and the pain of sense corresponds to its conversion for the actual fault, it is fitting that the pain of loss should not be without the pain of sense. But if the creature were annihilated, there would be eternal pain of loss, but the pain of sense would cease.

Reply Obj. 7: The judgment mentioned by the prophet implies the fittingness or carrying out of a punishment as regards the fault, as explained above. For the fury from which he prays to be delivered excludes the moderation of mercy.

Reply Obj. 8: A thing is said to be better either because it includes a greater good, and thus, it is better for the damned to exist than not to exist, or because it excludes an evil, since even absence of evil falls within the account of the good, according to the Philosopher. (Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics 5.8, 1135b11–1136a9.) The words of our Lord quoted are to be taken in the latter sense.

Reply Obj. 9: Although forms and accidents have no matter as part of themselves, as that from which they exist, they do have matter in which they exist and from the potency of which they are brought out; therefore, when they cease to be, they are not utterly annihilated, but remain in the potency of matter, as before.

Reply Obj. 10: Just as creatures are made from nothing, so are they reducible to nothing, if so it pleased God.

Reply Obj. 11–12: The sense of those authorities is not that the substance of the world will perish, but rather its configuration, according to the Apostle (1 Cor 7:31).