A. The Four Reasons they Bring Forward

16. They set down arguments for this conclusion - for present purposes four.

1. First Reason, which is from Thomas Aquinas

17. The first reason is taken from the side of the term per se of creation, and it is as follows [ST Ia q.45 a.5]: “It is necessary to reduce effects more universal to causes more universal; but the most universal of all effects is being itself; therefore it is the proper effect of the most universal or supreme cause. Hence it is said in On Causes [prop.3 nn.27-28] that neither the intelligence nor the rational soul bestows being save as they operate with divine operation.” From this is further deduced, “Since the production of being absolutely (and not this or that being) pertains to the idea of creation, therefore is creation the proper action of God.”

18. The addition is also made that creation cannot belong instrumentally or ministerially to a creature. The reason is that “an instrumental cause does not participate in the action of the superior cause unless its working for the proper effect of the principal agent is through something proper to itself.” The proof is that “if it did nothing according to anything proper to itself it would be applied in vain to the action. Nor would there need to be determinate instruments for determinate actions, just as we see also that an axe in cutting wood gets from the property of its own form that it produce the form of the bench, which is the effect of the principal agent.” But it cannot be like this in creation, because creation does not rest on anything presupposed that could be made ready by the action of an instrumental agent. For “absolute being, which is an effect proper to God, is presupposed to everything else.”

2. Second Reason

19. The second principal reason is taken from the distance between the terms of creation, and it is as follows [e.g. Matthew of Aquasparta, Albert, Richard of Middleton, Henry of Ghent]: only an infinite power can extend over an infinite distance; but between the terms ‘from which’ and ‘to which’ of creation, namely between nothing and being, there is an infinite distance;     therefore etc     .

20. Proof of the major: the greater the distance the more difficult it is to traverse it and the greater the virtue required in the agent; for we see universally that the more that potentiality is distant from act the greater the power required of the agent to reduce it to act.

21. Proof of the minor: for any finite distance it is possible to take or understand a greater; but no greater distance can be understood than that between nothing and being.

22. The minor is confirmed because the distance between all contradictories is equal; therefore the distance between nothing and something is equal to the distance between God and not-God; but the distance between God and not-God is infinite; therefore it is infinite between other contradictories too.

23. Again, the minor is confirmed in another way, because the distance between two contradictories is equal to the distance between any contradictories. But between the totality of being and pure nothing there is an infinite distance (in the way that it is possible for infinites to be contained under the totality of being), and such that only an infinite power is able to traverse it. So there is an equal distance between soul and not-soul or any creatable thing and its negation.

24. From this middle term [n.19] the argument for the conclusion is formed in another way as follows: there is no proportion between no-power and some power, as neither between not-being and being; therefore there is no proportion between the distance of power from act and the distance of no-power from act; therefore there will be no proportion between the power that can traverse the latter distance and the power that can traverse the former.

3. Third Reason

25. The third reason is taken from the order of agent causes [e.g. William of Ware, Giles of Rome], and it is as follows: An inferior agent presupposes in its acting the effect of a superior agent. This is clear from induction, because art presupposes the effect of nature that it acts on, and nature presupposes something potential, namely matter, which is the effect of the principal agent. If the order of agents requires this universally, and there cannot be any created agent that is not subordinate to God in acting, then a created agent necessarily presupposes in its acting an effect of God, and so it cannot act if nothing is presupposed, and therefore it cannot create.

4. Fourth Reason

26, The fourth reason is taken from the potentiality of a created agent [e.g. William of Ware, Giles of Rome], and it is as follows: no created agent is pure act or pure being; therefore none of its actions is pure act but has something of potentiality in it; but second act, being mixed with potency, is not without motion or change [cf. Ord. I d.2 n.311-312, II d.1 nn.315-316]; therefore no created agent can act without motion and change; therefore it cannot create, for creation is from nothing but motion is in a subject.