Sunday, September 24, 2006

Q45 A3: Whether creation is anything in the creature?

Yes. Creation in the creature is only a certain relation to the Creator as to the principle of its being because when movement is removed from action and passion, only relation remains.

Creation places something in the thing created according to relation only; because what is created, is not made by movement, or by change. (For what is made by movement or by change is made from something pre-existing.)

And this happens, indeed, in the particular productions of some beings, but cannot happen in the production of all being by the universal cause of all beings, which is God. Hence God by creation produces things without movement.

It is greater for a thing to be made according to its entire substance, than to be made according to its substantial or accidental form. But generation taken simply, or relatively, whereby anything is made according to the substantial or the accidental form, is something in the thing generated. Therefore much more is creation, whereby a thing is made according to its whole substance, something in the thing created.

Creation signified actively means the divine action, which is God's essence, with a relation to the creature. But in God relation to the creature is not a real relation, but only a relation of reason; whereas the relation of the creature to God is a real relation, as was said above (Q13, A7) in treating of the divine names.