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.