B. What One Must Think when ‘To Act Initially’ is taken

1. Nothing Other than God can, Independently of a Superior Cause, Act or Create Initially

123. As to the matter at issue it is clear that nothing other than God can act initially in every action when one takes ‘to act initially’ in the first way [n.119]. And this is plain according to the theologians, who say that God acts initially in every action [Alexander of Hales, Thomas Aquinas, Giles of Rome].

2. Whether any Creature can Act or Create when Depending on a Superior Cause

124. But when ‘to act principally’ is taken in the second way [n.119], there is a threefold way of speaking about it.

a. The First Way of Speaking

125. One way is that the negative conclusion is held only by faith [William of Ware], because of the authorities of the saints [nn.11-14], and cannot be proved by reason. For it is not evidently clear why it should be repugnant to a creature to produce some effect whole and wholly with nothing of it presupposed, since anything in the effect is more imperfect than such an agent cause is, and so could be contained in the cause eminently, and thereby virtually and actively. - This is plain by explaining causes and effects. For that which is more perfect in form is also more perfect in matter, because form is more perfect than matter, Metaphysics 7.3.1029a20-32. Therefore, if the cause can have the form in its active virtue, it does not seem repugnant to its perfection that it should have the matter in its virtue and thus the total effect. Therefore, if the creature can have the form in its active virtue, it does not appear why it will not similarly be able to have the matter, and so the whole effect wholly. Also, if several angels could belong to the same species, as was said in Ord. II d.3 nn.227-237, it does not appear why an angel cannot produce an angel as fire produces fire, for in both cases the product has the same proportion to the producer’s perfection.

b. The Second Way of Speaking

126. In another way it is posited that the negative conclusion can be shown by reason [Thomas Aquinas, William of Ware], and this universally about any creature. For just as material and formal cause in their whole genus necessarily require each other in causing a thing in its being (for never is the form the formal cause of anything unless the matter is at the same time the material cause of the same thing), so the whole genus of efficient cause, which includes every limited efficient cause, necessarily accompanies the matter as to the ‘coming to be’ of the thing. For just as matter and form are causes in a thing’s being, so are the efficient cause and the matter causes in a thing’s coming to be. It is therefore impossible for any limited efficient cause to act to produce the effect, unless, at the same time, the matter is concurrent as a principle equally requisite for the coming to be, and in this coming to be is received the form, which is the formal term of the action and from which, as from a part, the composite is constituted that is the primary product. But God does not require concomitant matter in his action, because he is, as an unlimited agent, above the whole genus of efficient cause.

127. This response, although perhaps it states the ‘reason why’ of the conclusion (namely the limitation of the efficient cause, which determines it to require matter in its acting), yet the ‘reason why’ is not much more evident than the conclusion, as is evident from looking at it.

c. The Third Way of Speaking

128. Therefore one can say in a third way that a creature cannot create principally in the aforesaid way [n.119], namely through an intrinsic form active with respect to the term in its own order of acting.

129. [First conclusion] - And the proof of this is by reason but not one that is common to all creatures, rather by several that are specific to diverse creatures, so that the conclusion is: ‘No created merely intellectual nature can create substance’. This was proved above when refuting the opinion of Avicenna [nn.82-84], because the intellection of any such nature is an accident and it can produce nothing save by an act of understanding and willing, which would not be a necessary preceding act if it could create substance; for between a perfect active principle in a perfect supposit and a substance terminating an action, no accident is a necessary intermediary. But it is otherwise with God, whose intellection and volition are his essence, and therefore he can produce substance through his intellection and will, but a creature not so.

130. Someone will say that the points that follow are disposed in order of difficulty and probability: first that an accident in virtue of a substance, which it is not, may produce a substance (but there will be discussion of this below in d.12 nn.120-121); second that an accident inhering in a substance may produce a similar substance by virtue of the first substance as a ‘by which’ not subordinated to the first substance as superior agent, but the accident is all the active ‘by which’ of the substance; the third is that an accident is an instrumental or secondary ‘by which’ of acting, subordinate to the substance and to its ‘by which’ in order of acting, but it does not reach the term of the action of the substance.a

a.a [Interpolation] All these are denied by Scotus, who concedes only that the accident is a form ‘by which’ in a dispositive action that precedes the action of the substance (as alteration precedes generation).

131. The first of these points [n.130] is sufficiently refuted in d.12 part 2 q.3 n.13, because it is against two propositions, of which one is that ‘the formal term of passive production cannot be simply more perfect than the formal principle of acting’, and of which the other is that ‘a form which is not cannot give to anything in any way the virtue of acting in any action, just as neither can that which is not be the principle of any action’ [ibid. n.9].

132. The second of these points [n.130] is against the first proposition above [n.131], because every superior agent has its own ‘by which’ of acting in its own order; but the essential order of agents is per se found only according to the active principles in them; so if the substantial form is not any principle of acting mediately, as not immediately either, then both the first and the proximate agent in generation is the quality, and the substantial form is the formal term of passive generation;     therefore etc     .

133. It will be said that the first proposition [n.131] is only true when joining perfection to the principle of acting, and therefore to that in virtue of which it acts. But, as it is now, it acts in virtue of the substance, though the substance is not a superior agent by its own form.

134. On the contrary: where the ‘by which’ is not subordinate to another ‘by which’, nor agent subordinate to agent, then what is altogether first as also proximate in the genus of efficient cause is what it is insofar as it has the ‘by which’; and for this reason the formal term of passive production is more perfect.

135. There is a proof of the first proposition absolutely [n.131], without the gloss [n.133 ‘when joining perfection to the principle of acting...’], because an active thing is active insofar as it has the formal principle of acting, but the product is per se produced according to the formal term of the production, so that other things in both producer and produced are not that according to which the former per se produces and the latter is per se produced. Therefore the thing produced, as produced, is more perfect than the producer insofar as it is producer, and so the thing produced will, according to something of itself (namely that wherein it exceeds the producer), be effectively from nothing.

136. But the third point [n.130] is against the proposition ‘an accident does not reach the matter in acting just as neither can it perfect it in being’, which proposition is against the first and second points [n.130], because they are not valid.

137. [Second conclusion] - The second conclusion is: ‘No material form can be created by a creature’. The proof is as follows: a form that is created comes naturally from the efficient cause before it informs the matter; a material form cannot come naturally from any creature before it informs its matter or potential;     therefore etc     .

138. Proof of the major, that if the form is not naturally first, then it does not receive being from the cause save by the action whereby the subject is informed with it; but this in-forming is a change properly speaking, and so is not creation [cf. Ord. I d.5 nn.94-96, II d.4-5 nn.290-295].

139. Proof of the minor, that no creature can give to a material form absolute being in itself, that is, without the material form in-forming its potential matter; for if it could thus give being, it could also conserve being, so that such a form would, by virtue of the creature, really remain for some time without matter. Now I call a material form every form that by its nature is naturally inclined to be the act of matter, and this whether the material form is substantial or accidental.

140. [Third conclusion] - The third conclusion is, ‘No material form can be the principle for creating something’. The proof is that, just as in its being a material form presupposes the matter in which it is, so in its acting it presupposes the matter on which it acts; otherwise the term of its action would be more absolute from matter than the form itself is.

d. Final Opinion

141. From these conclusions [nn.129, 137, 140] the intended proposition follows thus:

No angel can create a substance (from the first conclusion, nn.128-129), nor any accident (from the second, nn.136-137), because an accident cannot be created by a creature. Therefore, an angel can create nothing.

142. Nor can a material substance create anything, because it cannot act save through its form (whether accidental or substantial, I care not), for although matter is some being, yet it is so low that it is not the principle of any productive action. And a material form cannot be the principle of creating anything, nor can any accident be the principle of creating (from the third conclusion, n.140); therefore a material substance cannot create.

143. Therefore neither a material nor an immaterial substance can create, nor can any accident be the principle of creating (from the third conclusion, as stated, n.140).

144. There is also a special proof to show that a material substance cannot produce matter and so, if nothing is presupposed, not the whole effect either. For when certain things in their whole genus have some order, any one of them has a like order to any other of them (an example: if whiteness in its whole species is prior to blackness, then any whiteness is prior to any blackness). A material form in its whole genus is posterior in origin to the whole of the receptive matter; so any such form is posterior to any matter. But what is posterior in origin or generation is not the principle of producing what is prior in that way; therefore a substantial material form cannot create matter.

145. A confirmation of this is that a material form depends in its being on matter; therefore it cannot in its acting be the principle of producing anything of the same idea as matter. For it seems repugnant that it should in its acting depend on anything of the same idea as the term that it produces.

e. An Objection and its Solution

146. If you object [Aquinas on Metaphysics 7 lectio 1, 2] about substantial form and the quality consequent to it that the quality follows the substantial form of the generator, and yet it is in some way cause of the substantial form of the generated thing, so that, although the substantial form and its proper quality in their whole genus have an order (for the substantial form is prior), yet not any substantial form is prior to any quality but rather the substantial form is only prior to the quality in any same substance (though quality could precede substantial form in some different substance, which same point is confirmed by Metaphysics 9.8.1049b3-50a6, about potency and act, that act simply precedes potency in time and yet potency in the same thing precedes act in time) -If you so object, I reply that any substance of the same species precedes any quality in the way that substance in its whole genus precedes quality in its whole genus, namely ‘in definition, in knowledge, and in time’ [Metaphysics 7.1.1028a31-34], that is (as far as concerns itself) in separability. And thus does substance precede the quality of the generator in three ways, though not in time in the sense of temporal and actual duration outside the cause - and the Philosopher’s understanding here is not what you suppose [n.148].

147. And when you say that the quality of the generator precedes the substance of the generated as cause precedes effect [n.146], this is false, but this sort of quality is only the cause of the quality that disposes for the substantial form of the generated thing. And to this extent is it said to be in some way cause of the thing generated, although this is meant in a very extended way.

148. The cited authority of the Philosopher [n.146] is not to the purpose, because the act that is prior in time to every potency is not some material act but a simply immaterial once, as is plain in the same place at the end of the chapter [9.8.1050b16-18]. And the argument of the Philosopher [n.146] proceeded about the act that is posterior in its whole genus to the receptive potency.

149. Similarly, the points about matter [nn.144-145] and the second conclusion [n.142] are manifest among philosophers, who have posited that a secondary order of causes is simply necessary, so that a material form cannot be produced by any agent unless the matter concurs with the agent as a necessary cause that is presupposed to the term of the production.

f. A Doubt and its Solution

150. If you ask whether one can, from the above statements [nn.141-149], get the intended conclusion about the intellective soul, I reply that whatever the philosophers thought about it, whether it is created or not, will be touched on in IV d.43 q.2 nn.20-21, about resurrection. But the intended conclusion can be shown about it from the aforesaid conclusions [nn.141-142]. For the intellective soul cannot be created by an angel (as is plain from the first conclusion, n.141), nor by any created merely intellectual nature (plain from the same conclusion); nor by any bodily substance, whether through a substantial or accidental form, because the soul is nobler than any bodily substantial or accidental form; but a more ignoble form is not an active principle for producing a more noble form [n.142].

151. Thus the intended conclusion is plain, that no creature can principally create [nn.123, 128].