Chapter 9 — On the opinion of those who say that spiritual substances are not created

Just as the aforementioned position (Cf. above, Caps. V–VIII.) on the condition of spiritual substances strayed from the opinion of Plato and Aristotle (Aristotle, Metaphysics, I, 6 (987b 1–18).) by taking away the simplicity of immateriality from those substances, so we find that certain people have strayed from the truth concerning their mode of being by taking away from spiritual substances an origin in a first and highest author. On this point there was a three-fold error among different thinkers. For, in the first place, some of them said that the aforementioned substances had absolutely no cause of their being. (In all likelihood the Averroists in Paris; cf. H. Denifle et E.Chatelain, Chartularium Universitatis Parisiensis, I, Props. 46, 47 (p. 546), also printed in Mandonnet, Siger de Brabant et l’Averroisme latin au XIIIème siècle, II, 179, 184.4) Others held that these substances had indeed a cause of being but they did not proceed immediately from the highest and first principle, but the lower ones among them derived their being from the higher ones according to a certain orderly succession. (Avicenna, Metaphysics, IX, 4 (fol. 104va); cf. A. Forest, La structure métaphysique du concret selon Saint Thomas d’Aquin, 331, 360, for a list of references to Avicenna in St. Thomas’ works. Siger of Brabant likewise teaches the doctrine of cascade creation; cf. De Necessitate et contingentia causarum, II in Mandonnet, op. cit., 112; Denifle-Chatelain, Chartularium, 1, Props. 55, 64 (pp. 546, 547).) Still others admit that all these substances have the origin of their being immediately from the first principle; but in the case of their other attributes (for example, in that they are living, intelligent, and the like), the higher substances are as causes for the lower ones. (This is definitely from the Liber de causis: cf. O. Bardenhewer, Die pseudo-aristotelische Schrift über das reine Gute bekannt unter dem Namen de causis, no. 1 (pp. 163–164); Proclus, Elem, Props. 55, 56, 70 (pp. 53, 55, 67).)

In the first place, then, they hold that spiritual substances are completely uncreated. They derive this opinion from the things which are caused according to nature, and they base themselves on the common physical assumption of the philosophers as their principle, namely, that from nothing nothing comes. (Aristotle, Phys., I, 4 (187a 28).) That thing seems ‘to become’ which has a cause of its being. Whatever, therefore, has a cause for its being must come from another. Now that from which another becomes is matter. If, therefore, spiritual substances have no matter, it seems to follow that they have absolutely no cause of their being. (Cf. above, Cap. IX.)

Again, ‘to become’ is a certain kind of ‘to be moved’ or ‘to be changed.’ Now there must be some subject for all change and motion, since motion is the act of something existing in potency. (Aristotle, Phys., III, 1 (201a 15).) Therefore, some subject must pre-exist for everything that becomes. Hence, if spiritual substances are immaterial, they cannot have been made. (Condemnation of 1277, cf. Chartularium, I, Prop. 70 (p. 547), P Mandonnet, op. cit., II, 179; St. Thomas, ST, I, 61, 1 (BW, II, 565).)

Again, in any given making, when we arrive at the final ‘having been made,’ there remains nothing to be made, just as after the last ‘having been moved,’ there remains no ‘to be moved.’ But in the case of those things that are generated, we see that each one of them is then said to have been made, as meaning that the making is finished when it receives its form. For the form is the term of generation. Therefore, when the form is acquired, nothing remains to be made. Therefore, that which has a form does not become a being; it is a being according to its form. If, then, something is in itself a form, this does not become a being. Now spiritual substances are certain subsistent forms, as is clear from what has already been said. Therefore, spiritual substances do not have a cause of their being in the sense of having been made by another.

One could likewise argue to the same effect from the opinion of Aristotle and Plato who hold that such substances are everlasting. (St. Augustine, De Civitate Dei, IX, 8 (PL 41, 263); Proclus, Elem, Prop. 169 (pp. 147–149).) But nothing everlasting seems to be something made, since a being comes to be from non-being, as white comes to be from non-white. It seems to follow, then, that what comes to be previously did not exist. Consequently, if spiritual substances are everlasting, it follows that they are neither made nor do they have a principle and cause of their being. (Cf. Chartularium, I, Prop. 70 (p. 547). Siger of Brabant cites Aristotle in support of the position that nothing prevents an eternal and necessary being from having a cause of its eternity and necessity. Cf. Quaestiones De Anima Intellectiva, q. 5 in Mandonnet, op. cit., II, 159.)

But if one were to consider the matter correctly, he will find that this opinion and the previous opinion which attributes matter to spiritual substances proceed from the same source. For the previous opinion proceeded from the fact that Avicebron, unable to transcend the imagination, considered that spiritual substances were of the same nature as the material substances which are perceived by sense. (Cf. above, Caps. V–VIII; Aristotle, De Anima, III, 3 (427a 21); St. Thomas, In De Anima, III, lect. 4, ed. Pirotta, nos. 616–623 (AACTA 378–380).) So, too, the present opinion seems to proceed from the fact that the intellect cannot be raised to see a mode of causing other than the one which is suited to material things. For human ability seems to have progressed slowly in investigating the origin of things.

In the beginning, men thought that the origin of things consisted only in an external change, by which I mean an external origin that takes place according to accidental changes. (Cf. Aristotle, Metaphysics, I, 3, 4 (985b 6–985b 22); Phys., 1, 4 (187a 30); De Gen. et Corrup., II, 9 (335b 24); St. Thomas, ST, I, 44, 2 (BW, I, 428); A. C. Pegis, A Note on St. Thomas’ Summa Theologica, I, 44, 1–2, 159–168.) For those who were first to philosophize about the natures of things held that to become is nothing other than to be altered, so that the substance of things—which they called matter—is a completely uncaused first principle. (Cf. Aristotle, Phys., IV, 6 (213a 29); Metaphysics, II, 5 (1002a 8); St. Augustine, De Civitate Dei, VIII, 2 (PL 41, 225).) For they were not able by their intellect to hurdle the distinction between substance and accident. Others, proceeding a little further, likewise investigated the origin of the substances themselves, asserting that certain substances had a cause of their being. But because they were not able by their minds to see anything beyond bodies, they did indeed reduce corporeal substances to certain principles, but corporeal principles, and they posited that other substances come to be through the combining of certain bodies, as though the origin of things consisted solely in combining and separating. (Empedocles, according to Aristotle, Metaphysics, I, 4 (985a 8); Phys., I, 5 (188b 34).) Later philosophers proceeded by reducing sensible substances into their essential parts, which are matter and form. Thus they made the becoming of physical things to consist in a certain change, according as matter is successively made subject to different forms. (Cf. Aristotle, Metaphysics, XI, 2 (1069b 5 ff.).)

But beyond this mode of becoming, it is necessary to posit a higher one, according to the teaching of Plato and Aristotle. (Proclus, Elem, Prop. 26 (p. 31).) For, since it is necessary that the first principle be most simple, this must of necessity be said to be, not as participating in being but as being itself existing. But because subsistent being can be only one, as was pointed out above, (Cf. above, Cap. VIII.) then necessarily all other things under it must be as participating in being. Therefore, there must take place a certain common resolution in all such things according as each of them is reduced by the intellect into that which is and its being. Therefore, above the mode of coming to be by which something becomes when form comes to matter, we must presuppose another origin for things, according as being is bestowed upon the whole universe of things by the first being that is its own being.

Again, in every order of causes, a universal cause must exist prior to the particular cause, since particular causes act only in the power of universal causes. Now it is clear that every cause that makes something through motion is a particular cause, since it has a particular effect. For every motion is from this determinate point to that determinate point, and every change is the terminus of some motion. Therefore, over and above the mode of becoming by which something comes to be through change or motion, there must be a mode of becoming or origin of things, without any mutation or motion through the influx of being.

Further, that which exists by accident must be reduced to that which exists through itself. Now in every thing that comes to be through change or motion, there comes to be that which is in itself this or that being. But ‘being,’ taken generally, comes to be accidentally, for it does not arise from non-being but from not being this (as if dog were to arise from horse). To use the example of Aristotle, if a dog were to come to be from a horse, that which is essentially a dog comes to be, but an animal does not come to be essentially, but only accidentally, since animal existed previously. (Aristotle, Phys., I, 8 (191b 16–23).) It is therefore necessary to consider in things a certain origin according to which being, taken generally, is granted essentially to things—which transcends all change and motion.

And if one should consider the order of things, he will always find that that which is most such is always the cause of those things that come after it. For example, fire, which is hottest, is the cause of heat in other elementary bodies. (I.e., as common denominator and basis belonging to elements; cf. Aristotle, Metaphysics, I,1 (993b 23).) Now the first principle, which we call God, is most being. For we cannot proceed to infinity in the order of things, but we must come to something highest, because it is better to be one than to be many. But that which is better in the universe must necessarily be because the universe depends on the essence of God’s goodness. Therefore, the first being must of necessity be the cause of being for all things.

Having seen these points, (Cf. above, Cap. IX.) we can easily solve the arguments brought forth. That the ancient naturalists assumed as a first principle that nothing comes to be from nothing was due to the fact that they were able to reach only a particular mode of coming to be: namely, that which is through change and motion.

The second argument likewise was based on this mode of coming to be. For among things which come to be through change or motion, a subject is presupposed to the making, but in the highest mode of coming to be, which takes place through the influx of being, no subject is presupposed to the making; for according to this kind of making, for a subject to come to be is for the subject to participate in being through the influence of a higher being.

So, too, the third argument is likewise based on the coming to be, which is through change or motion. For when the form is reached, there will be no further motion. Nevertheless, we must understand that through its form, a generated thing receives its being from the universal cause of being. For the causes that are acting towards the production of determinate forms are causes of being only insofar as they act in the power of the first and universal principle of being.

The fourth argument likewise applies in the same way to those things which come to be through change or motion, in which it is necessary that non-existence precede the existence of things that come to be, for their being is the terminus of a change or motion. But in those things which come to be without change or motion through a simple emanation or influx, we are able to understand that something has been made without including that it did not exist at some time. For when change or motion has been removed, there is not found in the action of the causal principle the succession of before and after.

It is therefore necessary that the effect which is produced through the influence of a cause be so related to that influencing cause while it is acting in the same way that things which come to be through motion are related to their acting cause at the terminus of the action that exists through motion; for at that time, the effect then exists. Therefore, in the case of those things that come to be without motion, it is necessary that the produced effect be simultaneous with the influence of the acting cause.

If, however, the action of the acting cause be without motion, no disposition will come to the agent so that he might be able to act afterwards when previously he could not do so, because this disposition would already be a certain change. Hence he could always act by an influx. Therefore, the effect produced can be understood to have always existed.

And this appears somewhat among corporeal things themselves. For in the presence of an illuminating body, light is produced in the air without any preceding change of the air. Accordingly, if the illuminating body had always been present to the air, the air would always have light from it. But this appears more clearly in the case of intellectual beings which are more removed from motion. For the truth of the principles is the cause of the truth in conclusions that are always true. For there are certain necessary things which have a cause of their necessity, as Aristotle himself says in Metaphysics V: (Aristotle, Metaphysics, IV, 5 (1015b 9).) and in Physics VIII. (Aristotle, Phys., VIII, 1 (252b 3), 3. Cf. St. Augustine, De Civitate Dei, X, 31 (PL 41, 311–312).) Therefore, although Plato and Aristotle did posit that immaterial substances or even heavenly bodies always existed, we must not suppose on that account that they denied to them a cause of their being. For they did not depart from the position of the Catholic faith by holding such substances to be uncreated, but because they held them to have always existed—of which the Catholic faith holds the contrary.

For, although the origin of certain things may be from an unmoved principle without motion, it is not necessary that their being be everlasting. For an effect proceeds from any given agent according to the mode of the being of the agent. Now the being of the first principle is his understanding and his willing. Therefore, the universe of things proceeds from the first principle as from a being that understands and wills. But it belongs to one understanding and willing to produce something not of necessity as it itself is, but as it wills and understands. Now, in the intellect of the first understanding being, there is included every mode of being and every measure of quantity and duration. Therefore, just as the first principle did not give to things the same mode of being by which he exists, and enclosed the quantity of bodies under a determinate measure—since all measures are contained in his power as well as in his intellect—so he gave to things such a measure of duration as he willed, not as he has.

Accordingly, just as the quantity of bodies is enclosed under a given measure not because the action of the first principle is determined to this measure of quantity, but because a measure of quantity actually follows as the intellect of the cause has prescribed: so, too, from the action of the first cause, there follows a determinate measure of duration because the divine intellect so prescribed. Not, indeed, in the sense that God is subject to successive duration, so that he now wills or does something which he previously did not will, but because the whole duration of things is included under his intellect, so that he determines from eternity the measure of duration that he wills for things.