1 Objection 1: It would seem that God cannot create anything, because, according to the Philosopher Phys. i, text 34), the ancient philosophers considered it as a commonly received axiom that nothing is made from nothing. But the power of God does not extend to the contraries of first principles; as, for instance, that God could make the whole to be less than its part, or that affirmation and negation are both true at the same time. Therefore God cannot make anything from nothing, or create.
1 Ad secundum sic proceditur. Videtur quod Deus non possit aliquid creare. Quia secundum philosophum, I Physic., antiqui philosophi acceperunt ut communem conceptionem animi, ex nihilo nihil fieri. Sed potentia Dei non se extendit ad contraria primorum principiorum; utpote quod Deus faciat quod totum non sit maius sua parte, vel quod affirmatio et negatio sint simul vera. Ergo Deus non potest aliquid ex nihilo facere, vel creare.
2 Objection 2: Further, if to create is to make something from nothing, to be created is to be made. But to be made is to be changed. Therefore creation is change. But every change occurs in some subject, as appears by the definition of movement: for movement is the act of what is in potentiality. Therefore it is impossible for anything to be made out of nothing by God.
2 Praeterea, si creare est aliquid ex nihilo facere, ergo creari est aliquid fieri. Sed omne fieri est mutari. Ergo creatio est mutatio. Sed omnis mutatio est ex subiecto aliquo, ut patet per definitionem motus, nam motus est actus existentis in potentia. Ergo est impossibile aliquid a Deo ex nihilo fieri.
3 Objection 3: Further, what has been made must have at some time been becoming. But it cannot be said that what is created, at the same time, is becoming and has been made, because in permanent things what is becoming, is not, and what has been made, already is: and so it would follow that something would be, and not be, at the same time. Therefore when anything is made, its becoming precedes its having been made. But this is impossible, unless there is a subject in which the becoming is sustained. Therefore it is impossible that anything should be made from nothing.
3 Praeterea, quod factum est, necesse est aliquando fieri. Sed non potest dici quod illud quod creatur, simul fiat et factum sit, quia in permanentibus, quod fit, non est, quod autem factum est, iam est; simul ergo aliquid esset et non esset. Ergo, si aliquid fit, fieri eius praecedit factum esse. Sed hoc non potest esse, nisi praeexistat subiectum in quo sustentetur ipsum fieri. Ergo impossibile est aliquid fieri ex nihilo.
4 Objection 4: Further, infinite distance cannot be crossed. But infinite distance exists between being and nothing. Therefore it does not happen that something is made from nothing.
4 Praeterea, infinitam distantiam non est pertransire. Sed infinita distantia est inter ens et nihil. Ergo non contingit ex nihilo aliquid fieri.
5 On the contrary, It is said Gn. 1, 1): In the beginning God created heaven and earth.
5 Sed contra est quod dicitur Gen. I, in principio creavit Deus caelum et terram.
6 I answer that, Not only is it impossible that anything should be created by God, but it is necessary to say that all things were created by God, as appears from what has been said Question 44, Article 1). For when anyone makes one thing from another, this latter thing from which he makes is presupposed to his action, and is not produced by his action; thus the craftsman works from natural things, as wood or brass, which are caused not by the action of art, but by the action of nature. So also nature itself causes natural things as regards their form, but presupposes matter. If therefore God did only act from something presupposed, it would follow that the thing presupposed would not be caused by Him. Now it has been shown above Question 44, Articles 1, 2), that nothing can be, unless it is from God, Who is the universal cause of all being. Hence it is necessary to say that God brings things into being from nothing.
6 Respondeo dicendum quod non solum non est impossibile a Deo aliquid creari, sed necesse est ponere a Deo omnia creata esse, ut ex praemissis habetur. Quicumque enim facit aliquid ex aliquo, illud ex quo facit praesupponitur actioni eius, et non producitur per ipsam actionem, sicut artifex operatur ex rebus naturalibus, ut ex ligno et aere, quae per artis actionem non causantur, sed causantur per actionem naturae. Sed et ipsa natura causat res naturales quantum ad formam, sed praesupponit materiam. Si ergo Deus non ageret nisi ex aliquo praesupposito, sequeretur quod illud praesuppositum non esset causatum ab ipso. Ostensum est autem supra quod nihil potest esse in entibus quod non sit a Deo, qui est causa universalis totius esse. Unde necesse est dicere quod Deus ex nihilo res in esse producit.
7 Reply to Objection 1: Ancient philosophers, as is said above Question 44, Article 2), considered only the emanation of particular effects from particular causes, which necessarily presuppose something in their action; whence came their common opinion that nothing is made from nothing. But this has no place in the first emanation from the universal principle of things.
7 Ad primum ergo dicendum quod antiqui philosophi, sicut supra dictum est, non consideraverunt nisi emanationem effectuum particularium a causis particularibus, quas necesse est praesupponere aliquid in sua actione, et secundum hoc erat eorum communis opinio, ex nihilo nihil fieri. Sed tamen hoc locum non habet in prima emanatione ab universali rerum principio.
8 Reply to Objection 2: Creation is not change, except according to a mode of understanding. For change means that the same something should be different now from what it was previously. Sometimes, indeed, the same actual thing is different now from what it was before, as in motion according to quantity, quality and place; but sometimes it is the same being only in potentiality, as in substantial change, the subject of which is matter. But in creation, by which the whole substance of a thing is produced, the same thing can be taken as different now and before only according to our way of understanding, so that a thing is understood as first not existing at all, and afterwards as existing.
But as action and passion coincide as to the substance of motion, and differ only according to diverse relations Phys. iii, text 20, 21), it must follow that when motion is withdrawn, only diverse relations remain in the Creator and in the creature. But because the mode of signification follows the mode of understanding as was said above Question 13, Article 1), creation is signified by mode of change; and on this account it is said that to create is to make something from nothing.
And yet to make and to be made are more suitable expressions here than to change and to be changed, because to make and to be made import a relation of cause to the effect, and of effect to the cause, and imply change only as a consequence.
8 Ad secundum dicendum quod creatio non est mutatio nisi secundum modum intelligendi tantum. Nam de ratione mutationis est, quod aliquid idem se habeat aliter nunc et prius, nam quandoque est idem ens actu, aliter se habens nunc et prius, sicut in motibus secundum quantitatem et qualitatem et ubi; quandoque vero est idem ens in potentia tantum, sicut in mutatione secundum substantiam, cuius subiectum est materia. Sed in creatione, per quam producitur tota substantia rerum, non potest accipi aliquid idem aliter se habens nunc et prius, nisi secundum intellectum tantum; sicut si intelligatur aliqua res prius non fuisse totaliter, et postea esse. Sed cum actio et passio conveniant in substantia motus, et differant solum secundum habitudines diversas, ut dicitur in III Physic., oportet quod, subtracto motu, non remaneant nisi diversae habitudines in creante et creato. Sed quia modus significandi sequitur modum intelligendi, ut dictum est, creatio significatur per modum mutationis, et propter hoc dicitur quod creare est ex nihilo aliquid facere. Quamvis facere et fieri magis in hoc conveniant quam mutare et mutari, quia facere et fieri important habitudinem causae ad effectum et effectus ad causam, sed mutationem ex consequenti.
9 Reply to Objection 3: In things which are made without movement, to become and to be already made are simultaneous, whether such making is the term of movement, as illumination for a thing is being illuminated and is illuminated at the same time) or whether it is not the term of movement, as the word is being made in the mind and is made at the same time. In these things what is being made, is; but when we speak of its being made, we mean that it is from another, and was not previously. Hence since creation is without movement, a thing is being created and is already created at the same time.
9 Ad tertium dicendum quod in his quae fiunt sine motu, simul est fieri et factum esse, sive talis factio sit terminus motus, sicut illuminatio nam simul aliquid illuminatur et illuminatum est); sive non sit terminus motus, sicut simul formatur verbum in corde et formatum est. Et in his, quod fit, est, sed cum dicitur fieri, significatur ab alio esse, et prius non fuisse. Unde, cum creatio sit sine motu, simul aliquid creatur et creatum est.
10 Reply to Objection 4: This objection proceeds from a false imagination, as if there were an infinite medium between nothing and being; which is plainly false. This false imagination comes from creation being taken to signify a change existing between two forms.
10 Ad quartum dicendum quod obiectio illa procedit ex falsa imaginatione, ac si sit aliquod infinitum medium inter nihilum et ens, quod patet esse falsum. Procedit autem falsa haec imaginatio ex eo quod creatio significatur ut quaedam mutatio inter duos terminos existens.