Chapter 21 — That it belongs to God alone to create

It can also be shown from the foregoing that creation is an action proper to God, and that he alone can create.

For, since the order of actions is according to the order of agents (because the more excellent the agent, the more excellent the action), it follows that the first action is proper to the first agent. Now creation is the first action, since it presupposes no other, while all others presuppose it. Therefore, creation is the proper action of God alone, who is the first agent. (Bk. 1, ch. 13.)

Again. It was proved that God creates things from the fact that there can be nothing besides himself that is not created by him. (Ch. 15.) Now this cannot be said of anything else, because nothing else is the universal cause of being. To God alone, therefore, does creation belong as his proper action.

Further. Effects correspond proportionately to their causes, namely, so that we ascribe actual effects to actual causes, and potential effects to potential causes. In like manner, we ascribe particular effects to particular causes, and universal effects to universal causes, as the Philosopher teaches in Physics 2. (Aristotle, Physics 2.3, 195b12–30.) Now being is the first effect, and this is evident by reason of its universality. Therefore, the proper cause of being is the first and universal agent, which is God. But other agents are the causes not of being simply, but of being this (for example, of being a man, or of being white). But being simply is caused by creation, which presupposes nothing, since nothing can preexist outside being simply. By other makings, this or such a being is made, because this or such a being is made from an already existing being. Therefore, creation is God’s proper action.

Moreover. Whatever is caused with respect to some particular nature cannot be the first cause of that nature, but only a second and instrumental cause. For Socrates, since he has a cause of his humanity, cannot be the first cause of human nature because, seeing that his human nature is caused by some one, it would follow that he is the cause of himself, since he is what he is by human nature. Consequently, a univocal generator must be like an instrumental agent in relation to that which is the primary cause of the whole species. Hence it is that all the lower active causes must be compared to the higher causes as instrumental to primary causes. Now every substance other than God has being caused by another, as was proved above. (Ch. 15.) Therefore, it is impossible for it to be a cause of being otherwise than as instrumental and as acting by virtue of another. But an instrument is never employed save in order to cause something by the way of movement: for the very notion of an instrument is that it is a mover moved. Creation, however, is not movement, as we have proved. (Ch. 17.) Therefore, no substance besides God can create anything.

Again. An instrument is employed on account of its being adapted to the effect, that it may be a medium between the first cause and the effect, and be in contact with both, and thus the influence of the first reaches the effect through the instrument. Hence there must be something that receives the influence of the first, in that which is caused by the instrument. But this is contrary to the nature of creation, since it presupposes nothing. It follows, therefore, that nothing besides God can create, neither as principal agent nor as instrument.

Further. Every instrumental agent carries out the action of the principal agent by some action proper and connatural to itself: thus natural heat produces flesh by dissolving and digesting, and a saw works for the completion of a bench by cutting. Accordingly, if there is a creature that works for the purpose of creating as an instrument of the first creator, it must do so by some action due and proper to its own nature. Now the effect corresponding to the instrument’s proper action precedes in the order of generation the effect which corresponds to the principal agent. Hence it is that the ultimate end corresponds to the first agent: for the cutting of the wood precedes the form of the bench, and digestion of food precedes the generation of flesh. Consequently, there must be effected by the proper operation of the creating instrument something which, in the order of generation, precedes being, which is the effect corresponding to the action of the first creator. But this is impossible, because the more common a thing is the more does it precede in the order of generation: thus animal precedes man in the generation of a man, as the Philosopher says in his book On the Generation of Animals. (Aristotle, On the Generation of Animals 2.3.) Therefore, it is impossible for a creature to create, whether as principal or as instrumental agent.

Again. That which is caused in respect of some nature cannot be the cause of that nature simply, for it would be its own cause, but it can be the cause of that nature in this individual. Thus Plato is the cause of human nature in Socrates, but not simply, since he is himself caused in respect of human nature. Now that which is the cause of something in this individual communicates the common nature to some particular thing by which that nature is specified or individualized. But this cannot be by creation, which presupposes nothing to which something can be communicated by an action. Therefore, it is impossible for anything created to be the cause of something else by creation.

Moreover. Since every agent acts insofar as it is actual, it follows that the mode of action must follow the mode of a thing’s act: therefore the hot thing which is more actually hot gives greater heat. Consequently, anything whose act is determined to genus, species, and accident must have a power determined to effects like the agent as such, since every agent produces its like. Now nothing that has determinate being can be like another of the same genus or species except in the point of genus or species, for insofar as it is this particular thing, one particular thing is distinct from another. Nothing, therefore, that has a finite being, can by its action be the cause of another, except as regards its having genus or species—not as regards its subsisting as distinct from others. Therefore, every finite agent presupposes before its action that by which its effect subsists as an individual. Therefore, it does not create: and this belongs exclusively to an agent whose being is infinite, and which contains in itself the likeness of all beings, as we have proved above. (Bk. 1, ch. 49.)

Again. Since whatever is made, is made that it may be, if a thing is said to be made that was before, it follows that it is not made in itself but accidentally. But that is made in itself which was not before. Thus, if from white a thing is made black, a black thing is made and a colored thing is made, but black in itself, because it is made from not-black, and colored accidentally, since it was colored before. Accordingly, when a being is made, such as a man or a stone, a man is made in himself, because he is made from not-man; but a being is made accidentally, since he is not made from non-being simply, but from this particular non-being, as the Philosopher says in Physics 1. (Aristotle, Physics 1.8, 191b18–26.) When, therefore, a thing is made from non-being simply, a being is made in itself. Therefore, it follows that it is made by that which is in itself the cause of being, since effects are referred to their proportionate causes. Now only the first being is the cause of a being as such, while other things are causes of being accidentally, and of this particular being in itself. Since, then, to produce a being from no preexisting being is to create, it follows that it belongs to God alone to create.

The authority of Sacred Scripture bears witness to this truth, for it declares that God created all things: in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth (Gen 1:1). And Damascene says: all those who say that the angels are creators of any substance whatsoever are children of their father the devil; for those who are creatures are not creators. (John Damascene, On the Orthodox Faith, bk. 2, ch. 3 (PG 94).) Hereby is refuted the error of certain philosophers who said that God created the first separate substance, by whom the second was created, and so on, in a certain order, to the last. (Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae I, q. 45, a. 5.)