Creation

This Chapter studies the first origin of the world, and proves that bodies must, in fact, have a producer and a production, even in the face of the metaphysical possibility (if it is a possibility) of eternal matter. Further, the Chapter shows that the first beginning of bodies must have been an act of creation, and indicates the inept and impossible character of the non-creationist theories, whether these be bluntly materialistic or pantheistic. The Chapter then discusses the possibility of eternal matter, and the probable age of the world. There are two Articles:

a) MEANING OF CREATION

Creation is the entire production of a thing without the use of any materials. It is defined technically as the production of a being in its entirety out of nothing. And nothing means just what it says. It means the complete absence of any seedlings that might grow into the thing produced; the complete absence of materials out of which the thing produced might be built up.

There is an ancient Latin definition of creation which the student should know: productio totius ret ex nihilo sui ct subjecti, that is, “the production of a thing in entirety out of nothingness either of self or of subject.” In other words, the production, to be called creation, presupposes nothingness to start with ; and the nothingness is the absence of all of the “‘self”’ of the thing produced, and of all “subject” or materials out of which a thing could be produced or made up. It is the absence of all “self” ; thus the production, by what are called natural causes, of a great tree from a tiny seed is not creation; the production started with something of the tree, something of itself, to begin with, namely, the seed, the germ of life which is now in the tree. Further, the nothingness which is, so to speak, the stage for the act of creation, is the absence of all materials; thus the production of house or of automobile, of watch or of chemical compound, is not creation; existing things had to be used and treated and shaped to make such things; that is, some subject-matter had first to exist. But creation starts with nothingness “of self or subject,” and hence it is a complete, an entire production; it is truly “the production of a thing in entirety.”

Sometimes the definition of creation contains this phrase, “‘by the causality of God.” For God alone can create. The calling of being out of nothingness is the exercise of absolute or unconditioned and unlimited power. For, by the very concept of creatural production, we find the limited agent (that is, the doer, the cause, the producer ) coming up to the materials with which it is to work, using what is already there, meeting limit in the object with limit in the agent-power. Thus the very thought of creation is the thought of the exercise of absolutely limitless power, effortless power, perfect power. And such power is exercised only by the Infinite Being, ‘‘with Whom to will is to accomplish.”

So strictly and inevitably infinite is the creative power that it cannot be communicated to any limited being. Thus God cannot give the creating power to any creature. It means no limitation in God, that He cannot bestow such power ; it means only that a crcature, as a limited being, has not the capacity to receive it. Of course, God confers wondrous powers upon some of His creatures. He has empowered men to forgive sins; He has empowered men to change bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ. But these powers, however wondrous, are not the power of creating. They are conferred by divine delegation of authority and God works in and through His human instrument in their exercise. But to confer outright upon a creature the power of producing reality from nothingness is unthinkable. A limited being could not even serve as an instrumental cause, properly so called, for the creative action. For here is no question of authority, as in the cases mentioned above; here is a case of producing what is in no manner there. In the forgiving of sins, divine authority is conferred and divine power, upon a being capable naturally of exercising some authority; authority is not alien to the very nature of the instrument that God chooses to exercise infinite authority. In the changing of bread and wine into the actual Jesus Christ, authority and power is conferred upon a being capable naturally of dealing with realities, treating them, changing them. However far beyond all creatural power is the power of consecration in the Mass, its very concept is not in conflict with the idea of a creature or the service of a creature as the divinely chosen instrumental cause. But when it comes to creation, no creature can even begin to come into contact with nothingness and to do anything with it at all. There is, in a word, no connatural aptitude on the part of any creature to serve as an instrument for the creative activity. Hence, the act of creation is entircly and solely proper to Almighty God.

Take the matter in another light. Creation is not a change. It is not the change of one thing into another thing. It is the production of a thing out of nothing. When sins are forgiven, one (negative) quality of soul is changed to another (positive) quality; sinfulness is changed to grace. When bread and wine are changed into Our Lord Himself, one sub- stance is changed into another. But creation lacks the starting point of change; it lacks what philosophers call the terminus a quo (or, “point from which”) a change must start. Hence, although change is within the connatural aptitude of creatures, and although divinely conferred powers may marvellously enlarge this aptitude (and hence creatures may serve as instrumental causes of the most wondrous, even of infinite, change), creation, which is not change, lies entirely outside all creatural aptitudes; it is alien to them; it is in conflict with them. And therefore, no creature can be so much as the instrument divinely employed in the creative action.

For this reason, it is just and proper to call every limited being by the name of creature, that is, a thing created. For, ultimately, all reality harks back to its First Producing Cause (or its First Efficient Cause), and,—as we have noticed before and are now about to show in some detail,—the first producing cause must inevitably be a creating cause. Rightly, then, do we sum up all actual and possible reality under two heads, viz., Creator and creature.

Another point about creation is this: it must be instantaneous. This means, of course, that the creative act, whenever God exercises it, produces what He wills to produce on the instant. It does not mean that God cannot produce a reality and endow it with power to grow or develop gradually or successively, passing through many stages of a progress towards final perfection or roundedness of being. No, what is meant is that the reality produced by the creative act, whether it be produced in fulness of rounded perfection, or produced in a kind of germ or embryo, is produced instantaneously when the creative act is divinely exercised. For it is manifest that successive emergence of being is change; it is movement from stage to succeeding stage. But we have seen that creation is not change at all.

In passing, we should notice that annihilation (which is the flat opposite of creation) is also to be conceived as (a) within the sole power of God; (b) an action in which creatures cannot serve even as instrumental causes; (c) an instantaneous action; (d) an action which is not a change. For annihilation is the reduction to complete nothingness of an existing reality. Manifestly, as no creature can produce reality out of nothingness, nor even serve as the divinely appointed instrument of such production, so no creature can sustain reality in being, holding it out of nothingness, or reduce it to nothingness entirely, or serve instrumentally for such reduction. Since God alone can exercise the action of creating, —in producing and maintaining a substantial effect, —so God alone can withdraw the power so exercised ; only He who has the power to exercise can cease its exercise ; only He who has the power to sustain reality above the abyss of nothingness can withdraw that power and permit reality to fall again into the abyss. Again, it is clear that annihilation is no change. For a change always involves three things in itself: a real starting point, a real movement, a real finishing point. The finishing point, the goal, the term of the change, is called by philosophers the terminus ad quem (or “point to which” the change tends). Now, annihilation lacks this goal or terminus ad quem. For annihilation is not the transforming of a reality into something else and something equally real; it is the removal of reality altogether, the reduction of a thing to a no-thing, to nothingness.

Annihilation, however, is not requisite for our understanding of existing reality, as creation is. Things could not be here (as we shall see) unless they were first created. But, once reality is produced, there is no requirement of mind or matter which indicates that it shall altogether cease to be. Certainly, the infinite God who produced it and who supports it in being, can maintain it endlessly in being. Even if the law of entropy be true (and this law holds that all the energy which is ceaselessly exercised in the bodily world is gradually turning to heat-energy and is being dissipated throughout space and thus made unavailable for further employment; and that, in consequence, the world will eventually reach a state of equilibrium and of even temperature or coolness and become a spent force, a mechanism silent, cold, and moveless) this is no indication that the world will be annihilated. A cold and motionless universe would still be an existing reality, just as truly and completely as the present universe is an existing reality.

Not only is annihilation not requisite for an understanding of the world, it is usually regarded by philosophers as an impossibility, not in the sense that God could not, absolutely speaking, withdraw the creative and sustaining power by virtue of which creatural reality exists, but in the sense that it would conflict with God’s wisdom to do so. And what is in conflict with God’s perfections is in conflict with God Himself (since God is essentially non-composed, and all that He has He ts) and therefore cannot occur. When we consider God’s power alone (although we know that His power is not alone, but is infinitely identified with His other perfections and His undivided Essence) we say that annihilation is within its scope; when we consider God’s power as aligned with His wisdom, His goodness, and so on (and really His power is identified with these perfections and with His Essence) we say that annihilation is not possible. The technical way of putting all this is to say that annihilation is possible to God’s absolute power, but impossible to His ordinated power.

But there have been philosophers who taught that creation itself is an impossibility. We shall study the question of the possibility of creation in the next paragraph.

b) POSSIBILITY OF CREATION

A thing is said to be possible inasmuch as it is existible, inasmuch as it can be. A thing is possible in itself (or intrinsically) when the concept or thought of it involves no contradiction. For that which involves contradiction in its very concept is not a thing, but the absence of being; it is “‘self-cancelling” and amounts to zero. Thus, “a square circle” is a contradiction in itself; it means a circle that is not a circle. Hence “a square circle” is simply nothing. We say that such a thing (and it is called a thing merely by figure, analogy, and by reason of the want of words for the expression of sheer negation) lacks intrinsic possibility. We say that it is intrinsically (or absolutely, or metaphysically) impossible. What is intrinsically impossible simply cannot be, even by a miracle, that is, by an extraordinary act of God. This does not mean that God’s power is limited. God cannot produce what is intrinsically impossible, because this is not a thing at all; it is no-thing or nothing, and what is producible is always something.

The first point to establish, therefore, when there is question of the possibility of anything, is the fact of its intrinsic possibility. Does the thing involve a contradiction in its very concept ? If so, it is impossible, and there is an end of the matter. But if not, we have usually a further point to consider.

When a thing is intrinsically possible it is existible by the power of God. It is absolutely possible. But, while possible in itself, and hence possible to the absolute (or unlimited and unconditioned) power of God, it may not be possible when viewed in relation to the power of men or of other creatures. It may be intrinsically possible, and yet lack the extrinsic and relative possibility which consists in the ability of creature-causes to produce it. Thus a mountain of gold is intrinsically possible; it involves no contradiction in itself. A mountain of gold is also extrinsically possible in an absolute sense, since outside itself (that is, extrinsically) there exists the absolute power of God which can produce it. But a mountain of gold is extrinsically impossible in the relative sense which refers it to creature-causes (at least, to human creature-causes), since these are not capable of producing it.

To sum up: a thing is intrinsically possible when it is a thing and not a self-contradiction. A thing is extrinsically possible when there exists a cause which can produce it. Since there always exists a cause that can produce an intrinsically possible thing, all intrinsic possibilities are also extrinsic possibilities with reference to this Cause (that is, to God). But, since creature-causes are limited in being and in power, many things that are intrinsically possible are extrinsically impossible with reference to creature-causes.

In our present study, we need have no concern about the extrinsic possibility of creation in so far as this possibility has reference to creature-causes. For we have seen that no creature can be a creating cause, not even in an instrumental way. The act of creating is proper to God alone. Hence, we ask now whether the idea, concept, or thought of creation (that is, of the act of producing a thing out of nothing) is free from conflict and self-contradiction. If it is, then creation is possible; it is an action that can occur. If not, then it has not occurred and cannot occur.

If there be a conflict or contradiction in the very thought of the production of something out of nothing, then this conflict must be localized, so to speak, in one or more of the elements of that thought. Now, the thought or concept of creation involves three such elements: a producer, a product, and a mode of producing. We assert that there is no conflict or self-contradiction in the thought of creation, no matter how we view it; each angle afforded us for consideration by the “elements” of the thought, gives us a clear view with no involvement or contradiction. For: (a) There is no contradiction in the thought of creation viewed from the standpoint of the divine producer, Almighty God. Our very concept of God is a concept of an infinite Being, all-perfect, and hence all-powerful. God can do all things; hence God can create. Nor do we find any obstacle to this truth in the statement ex nihilo nihil fit, “nothing comes from nothing,” since this is an axiom which expresses the limitations of creature-causes, but is wholly inapplicable to the Creator-cause. The axiom can mean only that nothingness cannot generate reality out of itself, for the reason that it is nothingness; and, further, the axiom can mean only that no finite being can summon reality out of nothingness. But the thought of creation, from the standpoint of God the producer, is precisely the thought of an infinite Being summoning reality out of nothingness. And, indeed, if such a Being could not create, It would not be infinite, but limited. Far, therefore, from finding in the concept of God an obstacle to the possibility of creation, we find in this concept a requirement for the power to create and hence a necessity for creation as a possibility. (6) There is no contradiction in the thought of creation viewed from the standpoint of the thing produced, the thing created. For finite things can exist; the proof is that such things do exist. And they have existence by reason of their producing causes. But if these causes are also finite, then they too have existence by reason of their own producing causes. And so we go on, but we cannot proceed so endlessly. Processus in infinitum non datur, “There is no logical appeal to an infinite or endless series of causes.” Ultimately, we come to a producing Cause which has no cause of its own. We come to a first Cause. And there is no conceivable way in which the first Cause should produce a first finite effect except by summoning it into being absolutely, that is, by creating it. Far, therefore, from finding in the concept of a finite product (a creature) an obstacle to the possibility of creation, we find in this concept a requirement for creation as the first beginning of finite products. Now, what is thus required to account for reality around us, is certainly possible. (c) There is no contradiction in the thought of the mode of creation, that is, an absolute, effortless, instantaneous producing of finite reality by the infinite Creator. Indeed, our mind is inevitably led back, through the study of creatures, to just such a production effected in just such a manner or mode. A first production necessarily means a production from nothing ; no materials are present to work upon (else they would be first instead of the product made of them). And where there are no materials to work with, there can be no effort expended, no successive stages of production as the materials are put in use and the effect built up. Further, the infinite Being cannot be limited to labor and effort; these are imperfections and points of finiteness. Hence no mode of first production is conceivable except the effortless, instantaneous, absolute mode of creation. Far, therefore, from finding in the mode of creation an obstacle to the possibility of the act of creating, we find a requirement for this mode of first production. And the sane mind cannot view as requisite and consistent what involves contradiction and impossibility. The conclusion is inescapable. Creation, viewed from any angle, is necessarily a possibility to the infinite First Cause. Nay, for creatures it is a necessity; for without first creation, creatures could not exist. Yet creation is not a necessity for God. God needs no creature. God takes on no added perfection from the existence of creatures. God is all-perfect in Himself, and infinitely self-sufficing. Hence, God has no need to create. That He has, in fact, created, is owing entirely to His perfectly free and uninfluenced choice to create.

c) THE FACT OF CREATION

The world of bodies is here about us, and we ourselves are part of that world. And, as we have repeatedly observed, the existence of the world, and of ourselves in it, is proof positive and compelling that there has been a first production which is a creation. No other explanation can account for the world; no twisting of argument can escape creation and find another accounting for the world. The fact of creation is indisputable. Why, then, need we make a special study of this fact?

We study the fact of creation because there have been, and are, minds misled by faulty notions of first production (that is, of creation), and these have reached the conclusion that either (a) no such production is necessary at all, since matter is eternal and uncaused, or (b) such production is the projection of God Himself, or of His ideas, into the universe to constitute what we call creatures. So once more we take up (now on the score of first production) the bizarre and degrading doctrines of materialism and pantheism.

I. Materialism finds in matter itself (either with or without the adjustments and management of God) a sufficient explanation of the world. Atheistic materialism denies the existence of God, and makes matter self-existing ; thus matter is deified, made the self-subsistent First Being or God. Atheistic materialism is, to all intents and purposes, only a phase of crude pantheism. Theistic materialism admits the existence of God, but not of God the Creator ; it considers matter as an eternal substance, uncaused or unproduced, which God arranges and manages. Thus, God has set up the world and arranged it, using materials for the purpose, as a builder might set up a house, using wood and stones and mortar and nails. Agnostic materialism dodges the issue of God’s existence, and is content to treat of matter as an eternally existing substance which had rounded into plan and shape (as the world we know) either by chance or under the drive and direction of some inner law of its being, or, more precisely, under the influence of an infinite series of causal forces which come from matter itself and make it evolve in a certain way. Agnostic materialism is only a step removed from atheistic materialism and pantheism.

All types of materialism insist upon one thing, to wit, that matter is eternal and unproduced. Keep those two words “eternal” and “unproduced” together. It is an altogether different question which asks whether matter could possibly be eternal and created, that is eternal and produced, and we shall consider that question later. But, we repeat, materialism has, as its cardinal tenet, the doctrine of matter as eternal and unproduced.

Now, we assert that unproduced matter is a contradiction in thought and in terms. Matter is by definition and concept a thing with limits; it is marked by the inevitable characteristics of finiteness, mutability, contingency, composition. And only production can impose such limits. An unproduced being is a being wholly self-accounting ; it is a being infinite, uncomposed, necessary, changeless. Thus to say unproduced matter is to say ‘‘a being that is infinite and finite; changeless and changeable ; composed and uncomposed; contingent and necessary.” In a word, the term unproduced matter is a silly self-contradiction.

Again, matter is, by very concept, a thing indifferent to rest or movement, it is inert. Yet matter cannot actually exist unless it be either in movement or at rest. Existence means that so far as matter is concerned. Still matter itself cannot explain the actual state in which it is found. Therefore something other than matter must have given it existence. But if matter has been given existence, it has been produced. Matter is, therefore, not an unproduced actuality.

We conclude, perforce, that matter is not ens a se but ens ab alio, that is, matter is not self-subsistent being, but being which has existence from something other than itself. We have already seen, and we shall notice again presently, that ultimately matter has existence from the First Being by way of creative production or simply by way of creation.

From the foregoing it is manifest that materialism is false doctrine, and is to be rejected.

2. Pantheism identifies, in one way or another, the world and God. We have already proved in the First Book of this manual (Chap. I, Art., 1, c) that this sort of identification is a thing untrue and impossible. Here, then, it will suffice to set out the briefest sort of argument to recall pointedly to mind the nature of that impossibility.

The First Being (that is, God) is necessarily conceived as uncomposed, infinite, necessary, immutable. But the world, as we have seen, is marked by proper characteristics which are the flat opposite of the divine perfections. The world is composed, finite, contingent, mutable. Hence to identify God and the world is as impossible and as meaningless as to identify circle and square. Such identification is a selfcontradiction, and therefore it indicates an intrinsic (or absolute, or metaphysical) impossibility.

Again, to say that the world is an outpouring of God (as an inlet is an outpouring of the sea, or as flying sparks are “outpourings” of the fire) is to say that there is a kind of development, or successive process of being, in God. So also it is an assertion of growth or development in God to say that the world is a projection of divine ideas or dream-images. Now, as we have repeatedly noticed, God is Pure Actuality ; He is eternally perfect in an infinite way ; hence there can be no possible improvement, development, or perfecting of God. Pantheism, therefore, whether it be of the materialistic type or of the idealistic type, is a theory which involves contradiction, and is therefore metaphysically impossible.

Therefore, we reject pantheism as inept, false, and inadmissible.

3. Creationism is the doctrine that the world owes its first origin to an act of true creation exercised by Almighty God. We assert that creationism is the true philosophy of world-origin. We prove the assertion in two ways, negatively, and positively.

(a) A negative proof of creationism (or perhaps it would be more accurate to call it a proof by exclusion) is thus formulated: The doctrines of worldorigin are three and only three. All conceivable theories on this point are necessarily reducible to one of these three: materialism, pantheism, creationism. But we have already shown that the first two are false, self-contradictory, and therefore impossible.

It is consequently manifest that the third, and only remaining, theory is the true one.

(b) Things which exist have their existence either necessarily or by the gift of that which has existence necessarily. In other words, things which exist have existence either by their own essence (so that their essence is to exist, and they are therefore selfsubsistent and entia a se) or existence has, so to speak, been imparted or shared to them by that being which has existence by its own essence. An analogy may clear up the point. A thing which is hot, for example, either has heat by its own essence (as fire has) or heat has been shared to it, directly or indirectly, by that which has heat of its essence. Hence if a bar of iron is hot, we know that (since iron is not hot by its essence) heat has been imparted or shared to the iron; and, ultimately, the heat has come from that which is hot by its own nature or essence. Thus if the iron bar be part of a radiator, and is made hot by steam, we find that the hot steam has come into existence by the action of heat on water, and the heat has come to the water (immediately or indirectly) from the application of that which has heat of its own essence. So, in the order of being or existence, a contingent existence points back necessarily to a necessary existence; an ens ab alio points inexorably back to ens a se. Now, there is no conceivable way in which the necessary being (that is, the being which has existence of its essence) can share or impart existence to other things except by way of a first creation. Once created and preserved in being, a thing may exercise its causal activity and produce further effects (as heat, once imparted by the fire, may make water hot, and water may make iron hot, and iron may make one’s hands hot). But the first origin must necessarily be a creation. For, as we have seen, the necessary being cannot be identified with the non-necessary world of existing things, nor can the necessary being be the mere source (material or idealistic) from which things come, as water comes from a spring or as pictures come from a light thrown on a film. The first gift of existence to contingent realities must be an absolute gift, an immediate, complete, instantaneous production of realities. And such a production is neither more nor less than creation. The existence, therefore, of contingent realities in the world is proof positive and inescapable of a first creation as the true origin of the world.

SUMMARY OF THE ARTICLE

In this Article we have defined creation as the absolute production of a thing in its entirety out of nothing. We have explained the terms of the definition, and have seen that creation is an action proper to God alone, an instantaneous action, an action in