II. To the Fourth Question

A. Solution

281. As to the fourth question, about creation [n.179], I say that creation seems to import not only relation to God in idea of efficient cause but also a respect to preceding not-being, and this in order of duration, as creation is properly taken. But this order can be understood to be either to immediately preceding not-being or to not-being taken indistinctly; and in the first way a thing is said to be created only in the first instant - in the second way a thing can be said to have always been created, as long as it persists.

282. If we speak of the first relation (namely to the efficient cause), the solution is plain from the preceding question [the fifth question, n.260].

283. If we speak of the second relation [sc. order to preceding not-being], the relation seems not to be the same as the foundation - and this follows from the first way [n.281], insofar as the relation belongs to the thing in the first instant, provided the respect to not-being persists only in that instant; but what is absolute persists after that instant, and what does not persist is not the same really as what does persist.

284. If we speak of the order to not-being taken indistinctly, the same conclusion seems to hold [sc. that the relation is not the same as the foundation], unless proof can be given that it is contradiction for the essence to be without a respect to a preceding not-being in duration. But if there be proof (in the third question asked [n.95]) that it is a contradiction for a stone to be without a respect to a preceding not-being in duration, then it could be said as a consequence that the respect does not differ from the foundation save in that the respect is not a dependence on something on which what has the foundation essentially depends; and it was said generally in the preceding question [the fifth question, n.260], not that ‘every respect is the same really as its foundation’, but that ‘every respect of dependence on something, without which the dependent thing cannot be, is the same as the dependent thing’ [nn.261, 263, 265, 278]. But if it is not a contradiction for a stone to be without such respect and order to not-being, then it is plain that the order is not the same as the foundation.

285. Thus, therefore, creation is the same as the foundation either, according to one opinion, as to both respects that it states [nn.282, 284], or, according to the first opinion, at least as to the first respect (though not as to the second [n.282]).

B. To the Principal Arguments

286. One can reply as to the first argument [n.180] that the authority is speaking precisely of things that are included per se in the quiddity of the thing as it is quiddity (as quiddity excludes one and many, act and potency, because nothing such is of the per se understanding of quiddity); and in this way I concede that no relation is formally the same as the foundation, even if it is sometimes really and by identity contained in it, as is the case with the issue at hand.

287. As to the second [n.181], it is plain that the respect to God in question remains not only in the first instant but always, as long as the thing remains - as will be said below in d.2 n.62.

288. As to the third [n.182]. Although the statement ‘God cannot renew the same motion’ is not true (there will be discussion of this in 4 d.43 q.1 n.8, q.3 n.7), yet, if this is conceded, it is conceded because of the interruption, which according to them prevents the sameness of a renewed motion with a motion that has been destroyed. But this does not happen with the issue at hand save in that the same creation cannot be renewed insofar as it states an immediate order to not-being, but not insofar as it states a respect to the cause; hence, the same respect can be renewed, because the same maternity was in the mother of Christ (in relation to Christ) after the resurrection as before [4 d.43 q.1 n.13].

289. To the fourth [n.183] one can concede that creation as undergone is in the fire from the generating fire (namely the creation by which everything other than God is said to be created, whether it is created or generated); but the consequence does not hold ‘if creation is in the fire from the generating fire, therefore the creation is related to the generating fire as to the term’ - for likeness is in this white thing and in that from what generates it, and yet the likeness does not have to be related to the generator as to the term.

290. As to the fifth, the argument about change [n.184] - there seems to be a difficulty there both about the major and about the minor. I say that in natural change there is matter and form and agent and composite of matter and form and many respects (to wit: the respect of the agent to the produced composite, and conversely a respect of the produced composite to the agent, a respect of the matter to the form and conversely, and a respect of both to the whole and conversely, and a respect of the composite and of the present form to the preceding opposite; and not only were these absolutes preceded -namely composite and form - by their opposites, but the respects of matter to form and conversely, and the respects of form to composite and conversely, these too were preceded by their opposites, and so there can be respects of all these respects to their opposites; nor is this all, but also all these respects are from the agent, and so there can be respects of all these respects to the agent) - such that about these many respects, taking those that relate to the issue at hand, matter has respect to form as the perfectible and that which is perfected to its perfection, and these are coeval with the existence of the composite; this respect too is from the agent, which effectively induces the form and perfects the matter with this formal perfection, such that there is founded on this respect, which is ‘of matter to form as of receptive to perfection or of perfectible to perfection’, a respect of the passive thing to the agent; this respect too succeeds to its opposite, because the matter was previously unformed. These three respects seem to be what is meant by passive change, namely: the respect of matter to form as of perfective to perfection or of perfectible to perfection; the respect of passive or produced thing to the agent or producer; and the respect of a later thing to the preceding opposite. But two of these respects, namely the first and third, seem to concur in change absolutely (when not comparing change to the agent), and these are expressed by the idea of change whereby something is said to be changed ‘because it is disposed differently now than before’; if ‘disposed’ expresses the respect of matter to form or of the perfectible to the perfection which it is thus disposed to, this is what is actualized by that perfection; if ‘differently than before’ expresses it, here is another respect, founded on some respect of matter to form or of perfectible to perfection. And if one adds that change means that something is disposed differently now than before by some changer, here is a third respect.

291. As to the issue at hand, therefore, one can say that change, properly taken, is not the same as form (because then change would remain while the form remains), nor is it the same as the respect of matter to form or conversely (because then it would always remain while this sort of respect remains), nor is it the same as the respect of the whole to the opposite or conversely of the opposite to the whole (because then it would likewise remain while the composite remains) - but it is the order of matter to form as a new and immediate order to such form; and neither of these orders is an essential dependence on anything on which what has the order depends, and so neither is the same as the absolute thing. In this way then the major of the reason [nn.184-85] is conceded.

292. And to the minor [nn.184, 186] I say that creation is the producing into being of the whole created thing without presupposing any part of it - such that, although the created thing has two parts (one of which naturally precedes the other and receives it as its perfection), yet it is created as a whole. The first term of creation does not seem to be any part but total being, or at least it is so if we are speaking of a created angel, where nothing is a potential receiving something actual the opposite of which it was under previously.

293. And then if change is called ‘a new relation of the potential to the actual’, such that the potential pre-existed in itself and yet without the actuality, it is plain that no creation is change, because nothing potential pre-existed creation.

294. But if change is called ‘a new actualization of a potential’, such that the potential did not pre-exist under the act nor need it have pre-existed in itself - then in this way the creation of an angel is not change, because there is nothing potential in it. Yet it could in this way be said that creation of fire was change (if fire was created), because in fire there would be a potential and it would be actualized by form and it would be disposed differently now than before; not that it is ‘differently disposed than it was before’, but that it was ‘not disposed before as it is now’. And it seems that in the definition of change the ‘being disposed differently now than before’ should not be taken positively, because it is plain that the reference is not to a subject but to the term ‘from which’; but the term ‘from which’ of motion is properly not anything positive but is a privation, according to the Philosopher Physics 5.1.224b35-5a16.

295. I say then that either no creation is change, if change is that a potential always has to have pre-existed and be newly actualized by a received form (because the potential of no created thing pre-existed), or at least no creation of a simple is change, if it is sufficient for change that a potential was not in the act it is in now and was thus newly in act through change. But, in whichever way it is taken, the immediate order to not-being [n.281], by reason of which it was conceded that change differs from form [n.291], is also the reason by which it was conceded that creation is not the same really as the foundation [n.283], for the order immediate to not-being is not the same if it only remains in the first instant, just as, on account of the same order, creation does not remain in the same instant as form.