Book Two — Creation

Summa Contra Gentiles, Book II. 101 chapters. Translated by James F. Anderson.

Up: Summa Contra Gentiles · Thomas Aquinas

Chapters

1. The Connection Between the Following Considerations and the Preceding Ones
2. That the Consideration of Creatures is Useful for Instruction of Faith
3. That Knowledge of the Nature of Creatures Serves to Destroy Errors Concerning God
4. That the Philosopher and the Theologian Consider Creatures in Different Ways
5. Order of Procedure
6. That it is Proper to God to be the Source of the Being of Other Things
7. That Active Power Exists in God
8. That God’s Power is His Substance
9. That God’s Power is His Action
10. How Power is Attributed to God
11. That Something is Said of God in Relation to Creatures
12. That Relations Predicated of God in Reference to Creatures Do not Really Exist in Him
13. Chapters 13 and 14
14. Chapter 14
15. That God is to All Things the Cause of Being
16. That God Brought Things into Being from Nothing
17. That Creation is Neither Motion nor Change
18. How Objections Against Creation are Solved
19. That in Creation no Succession Exists
20. That no Body is Capable of Creative Action
21. That the Act of Creating Belongs to God Alone
22. That God is Omnipotent
23. That God Does not Act by Natural Necessity
24. That God Acts Conformably to His Wisdom
25. How the Omnipotent God is Said to be Incapable of Certain Things
26. That the Divine Intellect is not Confined to Limited Effects
27. That the Divine Will is not Restricted to Certain Effects
28. Chapters 28 and 29
29. Chapter 29
30. How Absolute Necessity Can Exist in Created Things
31. That it is not Necessary for Creatures to Have Always Existed
32. Arguments of Those Who Wish to Demonstrate the World’s Eternity from the Point of View of God
33. Arguments of Those Who Wish to Prove the Eternity of the World from the Standpoint of Creatures
34. Arguments to Prove the Eternity of the World from the Point of View of the Making [of Things]
35. Solution of the Foregoing Arguments, and First of Those Taken from the Standpoint of God
36. Solution of the Arguments Proposed from the Point of View of the Things Made
37. Solution of the Arguments Taken from the Point of View of the Making of Things
38. Arguments by which Some Try to Show that the World is not Eternal
39. That the Distinction of Things is not the Result of Chance
40. That Matter is not the First Cause of the Distinction of Things
41. That a Contrariety of Agents Does not Account for the Distinction of Things
42. That the First Cause of the Distinction of Things is not the World of Secondary Agents
43. That the Distinction of Things is not Caused by Some Secondary Agent Introducing Diverse Forms into Matter
44. That the Distinction of Things Does not Have Its Source in the Diversity of Merits or Demerits
45. The True First Cause of the Distinction of Things
46. That the Perfection of the Universe Required the Existence of Some Intellectual Creatures
47. That Intellectual Substances are Endowed with Will
48. That Intellectual Substances Have Freedom of Choice in Acting
49. That the Intellectual Substance is not a Body
50. That Intellectual Substances are Immaterial
51. That the Intellectual Substance is not a Material Form
52. That in Created Intellectual Substances, Being and What is Differ
53. That in Created Intellectual Substances There is Act and Potentiality
54. That the Composition of Substance and Being is not the Same as the Composition of Matter and Form
55. That Intellectual Substances are Incorruptible
56. In What Way an Intellectual Substance Can be United to the Body
57. Tire Position of Plato Concerning the Union of the Intellectual Soul with the Body
58. That in Man There are not Three Souls, Nutritive, Sensitive, and Intellective
59. That Man’s Possible Intellect is not a Separate Substance
60. That Man Derives His Specific Nature, not from the Passive, but from the Possible, Intellect
61. That this Theory is Contrary to the Teaching of Aristotle
62. Against Alexander’s Opinion Concerning the Possible Intellect
63. That the Soul is not a Temperament, as Galen Maintained
64. That the Soul is not a Harmony
65. That the Soul is not a Body
66. Against Those Who Maintain that Intellect and Sense are the Same
67. Against Those Who Hold that the Possible Intellect is the Imagination
68. How an Intellectual Substance Can be the Form of the Body
69. Solution of the Arguments Advanced Above in Order to Show that an Intellectual Substance Cannot be United to the Body as Its Form
70. That According to the Words of Aristotle the Intellect Must be Said to be United to the Body as Its Form
71. That the Soul is United to the Body Without Intermediation
72. That the Whole Soul is in the Whole Body and in Each of Its Parts
73. That There is not One Possible Intellect in All Men
74. Concerning the Theory of Avicenna, Who Said that Intelligible Forms are not Preserved in the Possible Intellect
75. Solution of the Seemingly Demonstrative Arguments for the Unity of the Possible Intellect
76. That the Agent Intellect is not a Separate Substance, but Part of the Soul
77. That it is not Impossible for the Possible and Agent Intellect to Exist Together in the One Substance of the Soul
78. That Aristotle Held not that the Agent Intellect is a Separate Substance, but that it is a Part of the Soul
79. That the Human Soul Does not Perish When the Body is Corrupted
80. Chapters 80 and 81
81. Chapter 81
82. That the Souls of Brute Animals are not Immortal
83. That the Human Soul Begins to Exist When the Body Does
84. Solution of the Preceding Arguments
85. That the Soul is not Made of God’s Substance
86. That the Human Soul is not Transmitted with the Semen
87. That the Human Soul is Brought into Being Through the Creative Action of God
88. Arguments Designed to Prove that the Human Soul is Formed from the Semen
89. Solution of the Preceding Arguments
90. That an Intellectual Substance is United Only to a Human Body as Its Form
91. That There are Some Intellectual Substances which are not United to Bodies
92. Concerning the Great Number of Separate Substances
93. On the Non-existence of a Plurality of Separate Substances of One Species
94. That the Separate Substance and the Soul are not of the Same Species
95. How in Separate Substances Genus and Species are to be Taken
96. That Separate Substances Do not Receive Their Knowledge from Sensible Things
97. That the Intellect of a Separate Substance is Always in Act of Understanding
98. How One Separate Substance Understands Another
99. That Separate Substances Know Material Things
100. That Separate Substances Know Singulars
101. Whether Separate Substances Have Natural Knowledge of All Things at the Same Time