The Agent of Creation

In this chapter Aquinas’s thinking on God as the agent of creation is explored. The main focus of this chapter is to consider what God must be like in order to be a creator. Given what the previous chapter showed, He must be the source of existence of all things, but beyond that He must also have certain attributes without which He cannot be creator; this chapter explores those divine attributes. It begins with a consideration of how we can have any philosophical knowledge of God, and then proceeds to consider several of the divine attributes constitutive of classical theism before considering the creative attributes of intellect, will, and power.

The Causality of Creation

In this chapter the causality involved in creation is considered. The chapter offers an account of causality in general and proceeds to outline the key distinction between per se and per accidens series and how they function in the metaphysics of creation. The chapter begins by looking at causality in general and then moving on to consider God’s primary causality as bringing all things into existence. It is then considered whether or not Aquinas is committed to any preexisting potential essences of which God makes use in creating. The summary anticipates future chapters. It is noted in the closing section of the chapter that the considerations here focus on God as primary cause of all things, but we also need to consider God as final cause.

Introduction

In this introduction, the context of Aquinas’s metaphysical thought is considered and how his metaphysics of creation is drawn from that. In particular it is observed that Aquinas’s metaphysics is wholly a result of natural reasoning and so cannot be inconsistent with other disciplines which also depend on natural reason such as natural science. Furthermore, Aquinas’s metaphysics is characterized as existentialist such that the central unifying theme of his thinking in this regard is the act of existence without which there would be nothing. This notion of an existentialist metaphysics carves out a space for Thomism independent of contemporary analytic approaches to metaphysics which are somewhat distanced from the actual existence of things, and the more continental approach of Sartre for whom existence is a given to be determined in the life choices that one makes.

The End of Creation

Chapter 4 considered God as the primary cause of all things, and the following chapters considered the things that God creates. Chapter 7, the final chapter, considers God as the final cause of all things. In doing so this chapter integrates final causality into the account of per se causal series outlined in chapter 4. God then will be seen to be not only the primary cause of all things, but their ultimate end. Aquinas’s view that God is the ultimate end of all things then has implications for what Aquinas sees as the whole purpose of creation and the role of creatures, particularly human beings, therein.

The History of Creation

In this chapter the history of creation is considered, and the focus is on two key issues: (i) whether or not there is a beginning to creation, and (ii) the consistency of Aquinas’s views with the biblical account of Genesis. There are two main parts of this chapter. The first part deals with Aquinas’s view that the arguments both for and against a beginning of creation are unsatisfactory. The second part deals with Aquinas’s reading of the creation narrative in Genesis, how this reading fits in with his metaphysics of creation, and how it entails that one need not be committed to a literal six-day creation story in order to take the Genesis account seriously.

The Meaning of Creation

In this chapter the very meaning of creation is considered. It is noted that for Thomas creation involves the production of the total substance in being, and that the philosopher can establish a number of things about this on the basis of natural reason. However, as is well known, Thomas stops short of saying that the beginning of creation can be established by the philosopher. Thus, the consideration of the meaning of creation in this chapter is limited to details which can be established by the philosopher, in particular how it is to be taken as ex nihilo, as a relation, and whether or not creatures can create. The issue of the beginning of creation is dealt with in a later chapter.

The Object of Creation

This chapter focuses on the object of creation given that God is the primary cause of all things. In considering the object of creation Aquinas’s metaphysics of substance is considered and how creation is the production of the total substance in being.

Philosophies of Creation

In this chapter the philosophies of creation with which Aquinas himself was familiar are explored. Accordingly, Aquinas’s engagement with the creationist metaphysics of the Presocratics, Plato and Aristotle, and their followers is considered. It is noted that in his engagement with these thinkers, Aquinas articulates a basic deficiency in many of them to the effect that they do not isolate the actual existence of things as a feature of them without which they would not be and thus calling on a cause for all things that in any way exist. Accordingly, many of these thinkers fail to arrive at the notion of a creator, and those who do so because they have reached a universal consideration of things in terms of their very being.