Book Two — Creation, Chapter 28 — Summa Contra Gentiles
HOW DUENESS IS ENTAILED IN THE PRODUCTION OF THINGS
[1] From the foregoing it must also be shown that in the creation of things God did not work of necessity, as though He brought things into being as a debt of justice.
[2] As Aristotle points out, justice involves a relationship to another, to whom it renders what is due. But, for the universal production of things, nothing is presupposed to which anything may be due. It follows that the universal production of things could not result from a debt of justice.
[3] Then too, since the act of justice consists in rendering to each that which is his own, the act by which a thing becomes one’s own property is prior to the act of justice, as we see in human affairs; a man’s work entitles him to possess as his own that which his employer, by an act of justice, pays to him. The act by which a person first acquires something of his own cannot, therefore, be an act of justice. But, by the act of creation, a created thing first possesses something of its own. It is not from a debt of justice, therefore, that creation proceeds.
[4] Furthermore, no one owes anything to another except because he depends on him in some way, or receives something either from him or from someone else, on whose account he is indebted to that other person; a son is a debtor to his father, because he receives being from him; a master to his servant, because he receives from him the services he requires; and every man is a debtor to his neighbor, on God’s account, from whom we have received all good things. God, however, depends on nothing, nor does He stand in need of anything that He may receive from another, as things previously said make perfectly clear. Hence, it was from no debt of justice that God brought things into being.
[5] Another argument is this. In every genus that which is for its own sake is prior to that which is for the sake of something else. Thus, that which is absolutely the first of all causes is a cause solely on its own account. But whatever acts by reason of a debt of justice acts not on its own account alone, but on account of that to which it is indebted. Now, since God is the first cause and the primal agent, He did not bring things into existence because of any debt of justice.
[6] Hence St. Paul says: “Who hath first given to him, and recompense shall be made him? For of Him, and by Him, and in Him, are all things” (Rom. 13:35-36); and in the Book of Job (41:2) we read: “Who has given me before that I should repay him? All things that are under heaven are mine.”
[7] Thus is set aside the error of those who try to prove that God can do nothing except what He does, on the argument that He can do only that which He ought to do; on the contrary, as we have proved, God does not produce things from a debt of justice.
[8] True enough, prior to the universal production of things, nothing created exists to which anything can be due; nevertheless, it is preceded by something uncreated, namely, the principle of creation. And this precedence can be considered in two ways. For the divine goodness precedes as end and prime motivating principle of creation—as Augustine says, “because God is good, we are.” And God’s knowledge and will precede as that by which things are brought into being.
[9] Therefore, if we consider God’s goodness absolutely, we find nothing due in the creation of things. For in one way a thing is said to be a person’s due by reason of the relation of another person to him, so that he is obliged to make a return to that person for what he has received from him; thanks are due a benefactor for his kindness because the recipient owes this to him. This sort of dueness, however, has no place in the creation of things, because there is nothing pre-existent that could owe anything to God, nor does any benefaction of His pre-exist. In another way, something is said to be due a thing according to itself; for whatever is required for a thing’s completeness is necessarily due that thing; it is a man’s due to possess hands or strength, since without these he cannot be complete. But for the fulfillment of His goodness God needs nothing outside Him. Therefore, the production of things is not due Him by way of necessity.
[10] Moreover, as we have shown, God brings things into being by His will. Now, if God wills His own goodness to be, He is under no necessity of willing the production of anything else; the antecedent of this conditional proposition is necessary, but not the consequent; for, as we proved in Book I, God necessarily wills His goodness to be, but He does not necessarily will anything else. Therefore, the production of creatures is not something due the divine goodness of necessity.
[11] Also, it has been shown that God brings things into being neither by a necessity of His nature, nor of His knowledge, nor of His will, nor of His justice. By no mode of necessity, then, is it due the divine goodness that things be brought into being.
[12] It may be said, however, that this is God’s due by way of a certain fittingness. But justice, properly so called, requires a debt of necessity, for what is rendered to someone by an act of justice is owed to him by a necessity of right.
[13] Therefore, it cannot be said that the production of creatures arose from a debt of justice by which God is the creature’s debtor, nor from a debt of justice whereby He is a debtor to His own goodness, if justice be taken in its proper sense. But, if the term be taken broadly, we may speak of justice in the creation of things, meaning that creation befits the divine goodness.
[14] If, however, we consider the plan which God by His intellect and His will laid down for the production of things, then the latter proceeds from the necessity of that plan. For it is impossible that God should plan to do a certain thing which afterwards He did not; otherwise, His decision would be either changeable or weak. The fulfillment of His ordinance is therefore something necessarily due. Nevertheless, this dueness does not suffice for introducing the notion of justice, properly so called, into the creative production of things, wherein nothing can be considered except the act of God creating. (And, as Aristotle explains in Ethics V [11], there is no justice properly speaking between a man and himself.) Therefore, it cannot properly be said that God brought things into being from a debt of justice, on the grounds that by His knowledge and will He ordained Himself to their production.
← II.27. That the Divine Will is not Restricted to Certain Effects · Book Two — Creation Contents · II.29. Chapter 29 →