Chapter 17 — That creation is neither movement nor change

Having proved the foregoing, it is evident that God’s action, which is without preexisting matter and is called creation, is neither movement nor change, properly speaking.

For all movement or change is the action of that which is in potency as such. (Aristotle, Physics 3.1, 201a28–30.) Now in this action there preexists nothing in potency to receive the action, as we have proved. (Ch. 16.) Therefore, it is neither movement nor change.

Again. The extremes of a movement or change are included in the same order: either because they come under one genus as contraries (for instance, in the movement of growth and alteration, and when a thing is carried from one place to another); or because they have one potency of matter in common, as privation and form in generation and corruption. But neither of these applies to creation: for it admits of no potency, nor of anything of the same genus that may be presupposed to creation, as we have proved. (Ch. 16.) Therefore, there is neither movement nor change in it.

Further. In every change or movement, there must be something that is conditioned otherwise now and before, since the very name of change shows this. (Aristotle, Physics 5.1, 224a30–b12.) But when the whole substance of a thing is brought into being, there can be no same thing that is conditioned in one way and in another, for it would not be produced, but presupposed to production. Therefore, creation is not a change.

Further. Movement and change must precede that which is made by change or movement, because having been made is the beginning of rest and the term of movement. Therefore, all change must be movement or the term of a movement that is successive. For this reason, what is being made is not. For as long as movement lasts, something is being made and is not. In contrast, in the term itself of movement (in which rest begins), a thing is no longer being made, but it has been made. Now in creation this is impossible: for if creation preceded as movement or change, it would necessarily presuppose a subject, and this is contrary to the nature of creation. Therefore, creation is neither movement nor change.