1. First Reason

20. Those who do not like this opinion [n.18] would say that it is false for this reason, that ‘to be created’ states a certain ‘coming to be’ such that, over and above ‘coming to be’, it adds something both as regards respect to an efficient cause that ‘coming to be’ asserts, and as regards respect to the preceding opposite that it asserts. On the first point, ‘coming to be’ has a respect to efficient cause in general but ‘to be created’ has a respect properly to the first efficient cause as immediate producer (so that nothing is properly said to be created save what is directly brought into being by the first efficient cause alone). On the second point, ‘coming to be’ gives one to understand any preceding opposite whatever, whether positive or privative; but ‘to be created’, when properly taken, adds that the immediately preceding opposite is the contradictory (namely negation that is not in any subject, and so is neither privation nor even the contrary [Peter of Spain, Tractatus 3.29]).

21. Taken in this way, namely when ‘to be created’ is taken strictly, that thing is said strictly to be a creature which receives being immediately from the first efficient cause, and does so after complete non-being or after pure nothing. And in this way there is no doubt that Christ is not a creature, because even the human nature in Christ is not a creature in this way; for it was not immediately brought into being by the first efficient cause alone but also by his mother Mary, who had some causality with respect to it; nor was it brought into being after the contradictory opposite, which is complete non-being or pure nothing, but after the privative opposite, namely because the matter of the body was changed from the form of blood to the form of an animated organic body. For only angels and the intellective soul and grace and things of that kind, which are produced by the first efficient cause from nothing, are said to be created in this way.

22. ‘To be created’ is taken more generally in another way insofar as it states a relation to the first efficient cause but not to it as immediate producer (namely with exclusion of all second causes). And when ‘to be created’ is taken generally in this way ‘creature’ is asserted generally of everything other than God, with the exception of Christ; for everything other than the first efficient cause receives being and is said to be created - and although they are the effects of other causes, yet they are not said to be the creatures of other causes, for creature taken in the strict way does not state a relation to a second cause; also they receive their first being after non-being, whether the non-being is nothing or in some subject.

23. Now the first being of something can be understood in two ways: First, that by which the whole is said to be first a being, that is adequately, as humanity is said to be the first being of an animated organic body - and this whole being, which arises from the union of the parts, is the adequate being of the whole.

24. Second, the first being of something can be said to be the being of some first part in the whole, as that, if the organic body preceded animation in time, the first being of a man in this way would be the being of the organic body.

25. Any creature, therefore, receives, in either of these two ways, its first being after the non-being, total or partial, of the first part; and therefore, if the organic body were inanimate from eternity and animated in time, the whole man would be called a creature even though he did not receive all his partial being after non-being but rather his total first being.

26. Now Christ in no way received his first being after non-being, because he did not thus receive his first total being, which would be the resultant of his divine and human nature - for nothing is such according to Damascene ch.49, since then those two natures would exist in confused state there but, just as the two natures are distinct, so the beings are two - nor did Christ thus receive his first partial being, namely the being of the Word (which is presupposed to the being of the human nature as subject to accident), for the being of the Word is eternal. So in Christ’s case the relation that ‘creature’ necessarily states to a preceding opposite is lacking, namely the relation that being follows non-being -whether partial being, if there is no total being, or the total being of that which is created. Such is not the case in the matter at hand.

27. Against this reasoning [n.26] the following is objected:

Whatever is the term of some change can be the term of creation; the human nature in Christ, which was the term of his generation, can be the term of change taken generally, and so it can be the term of creation taken generally. Therefore Christ is a creature in the way that he has human nature, for creation does not seem to have regard to the firstness of his being as its term more than any other change has to its term, for creation can have for term whatever any other change can have for its term.

28. Besides, Christ was truly said to be dead, and ‘being dead’ truly states privation of being and privation of first being - and what the one opposite posits as first being is, it seems, not more than what the other opposite posits as privation of first being.

29. To the first objection [n.27] I concede that human nature can be -and was - the term of creation taken generally, and the nature is truly called a creature; but yet not for this reason is Christ called a creature, because the first being of this nature is not the first being of Christ; and so the first being of this nature follows the first partial being of Christ, for it follows the being of the Word, and Christ cannot have any other first being.

30. And when the objection says [n.27] that this change, namely creation, no more posits that the first being of the term was acquired than any other change does, I reply that this is false, because the specification ‘creation’ adds further the other changes that ‘creation’ states - for just as something would not be called a creature if it were only from a second cause (for ‘being created’ states a relation to the first efficient cause), although it would be called ‘generated’ with respect to that second cause, so in like manner, although something could be called ‘generated’ if some being simply (and not the first being of a generated thing) were acquired by it through generation, yet it is not said to be created unless its first being follows after non-being. And thus this inference does not hold: “Christ was generated in the sense that the predicate ‘generated’ belongs to him by reason of his human nature, so he is also created,” just as it does not hold in other cases as “fire is generated, therefore it is a creature generally speaking” - or it only holds by reason of matter, for the being of fire simply, which is the term of the generation of fire, is the first being of what is said to be generated.

31. To the second objection [n.29] I say that ‘dead’ does not deprive Christ of his first being but of his being simply, which is his being alive; for the generation of a substance is its acquisition of being simply but not necessarily its acquisition of its first being. Hence it is true to concede that Christ was dead just as it is true to concede that he was generated in time; but it is not true to concede that he was annihilated, for just as Christ is not said to be created so he is not said to be annihilated (for what the opposite of creation states is annihilation of first being).