Book I, Chapter 3

Chapter III. That God is the necessary efficient cause of every thing made. It has a Corollary with three parts.

To this it must be added that God is the necessary efficient cause of every thing made. For it seems less for a thing to exist through itself, or to preserve another, than to make something through itself when it was not. But no creature can do even the lesser in this matter, as the preceding chapter taught; therefore it cannot do the greater either. God, therefore, of necessity puts his hand to every making. The arguments made about preservation can also be made about making, with the terms interchanged; and many of the authorities that speak of preservation speak likewise of making. Besides the authorities cited above, there are also many others that bear witness to the truth. B1 Aristotle, in On the World 11,1 says: "An ancient saying, handed down from our fathers, is common to all men, that all things are from God and consist through God." And below: "God is in truth the savior and begetter of all things, whatever is made in whatever way in this world." And it follows, in another translation: "But he works through himself, sustaining the labor of a laboring animal,2 yet also using an impassible power." And below, in the same place, he shows that God makes all the works of this world by a single action, saying: "Just as in a chorus, when the chorus-leader begins, the whole chorus of men and women sings together in various voices, high and low, making one continuous harmony; so it is with God, who disposes all things." And he goes on: "What is done in time of war seems most nearly comparable. When the trumpet signals the army, then each man, hearing the blast, one takes up a shield, another greaves and a helmet, and fits on a belt; one bridles a horse, another mounts a chariot, another gives the signal; soon the leader of the ambush takes his stand in the ambush, the commander of the battle line in the line, the soldier on the wing, and the unarmed man runs back to his own affairs. All things are moved under one signaller, by the nod of the Leader who holds the power; so must we understand also of the universe. For from the one mover, all being stirred up, their own proper acts are done, and this by a being invisible and hidden, which is in no way a hindrance either to that being in acting, or to us in believing." But this single action of God is not the motion of the heavens, as some dream, but God's single speaking or saying, as Aristotle himself testifies in the same chapter, as is recounted in the preceding chapter.3 He shows the same thing next through another likeness: "For the soul, through which we live and have houses and cities, is a being seen to be invisible through its works. For the whole beauty of life has been discovered by it, and ordered, and held together: the tilling of the land, plantations, the devising of arts, the use of laws, adornment and civic order, domestic affairs, and wars or peace beyond the borders. These things must be considered, or understood according to another translation,4 of God: a being most strong, in appearance most beautiful, in life immortal, in power most mighty, or, according to another translation, best. Therefore, though invisible to all nature, he is seen from his very works. For all the occurrences, those through the air, those upon the earth and those in the water, will truly be called works of God, who pours them out over the world; from which, according to the natural philosopher Empedocles: 'All things whatever that are and later will be, trees came forth from them, and men with women, wild beasts and birds too, and the fishes nourished in the waters.'" Hence the Apostle to the Romans 1: "The invisible things of God, from the creation of the world, are clearly seen, being understood through the things that were made; also his eternal power and divinity." The holy Fathers understand it so, expounding it literally. In Wisdom 13, too, the argument against idolaters is made by this: "Vain," it says, "are all men in whom knowledge of God is not present, and who from the things that are seen to be good could not understand what is,5 nor by attending to the works did they recognize who the artificer was." And it goes on: "For from the greatness of beauty and of the creature the Creator can be seen intelligibly." And below in the same place: "But if they had been able to know so much as to be able to estimate the world, how did they not more readily find its master?"

Furthermore, the Philosopher too in On the World 11 says of God: "Though he is one, he is named with many names from all the effects that he himself renews; for we call him Jove, and he is also called Thunderer from the thunderbolt, Rain-giver from the rain, Thundering, Stormy, Serene," and, when such an enumeration is finished, as if by way of the particulars he adds at the end: "and, to speak in sum, to be called Heavenly and earthly from every nature and fortune, as being himself the cause of all things, on account of which it is not ill said in the Orphic [verses]: Jupiter Arigikeminus," in another translation "Prince of thunderbolts"; and it goes on:6 "Jupiter the Head, Jupiter the middle; from Jove all things have been generated." Hermes, Plato, Avicenna, Algazel, Averroes, the author of the Book on Causes and its Commentator,7 and a not small crowd of philosophers agree with this opinion. The whole sequence of both Testaments also very often attests this opinion. Hence Isaiah 45: "I am the Lord, doing all these things"; A1 and below in the same place he curses all who say the contrary: "Woe," he says, "to him who contradicts his maker, a potsherd of the potsherds of the earth." And earlier, ‖A2 chapter 26: "Lord, you will give us peace; for you have wrought all our works, Lord." Therefore in the hymn of the three boys,8 too, all creatures, as works of the Lord, are roused in order to bless the Lord, as if to render thanks to their Worker. And in John 5 the Truth itself says: "My Father works until now, A3 and I work"; whence also earlier, in John 1: "All things were made through him." On which Augustine, in the first homily:9 "Understand it, then, brothers, altogether thus: All things were made through him; the whole creation was made through him, the greater and the lesser. For there is no form, no structure, no concord of parts, no substance of any kind, that could have weight, number, measure, except through that Word and from that Creator to whom it was said: You have disposed all things in measure and number and weight. God made all things and set them in their own degrees. All things, then, brothers, all things altogether were made through him, and without him nothing was made."

The same author, below, in the eighth homily: "As," he says, "what the servants put into the water jars was turned into wine by the work of the Lord, so too what the clouds pour out is turned into wine by the work of the same Lord. But the latter we do not marvel at, because it happens every year; constant repetition has lost the wonder. For who is there that considers the works of God by which this whole world is ruled and administered, and is not struck dumb? He is overwhelmed with miracles. But because men, intent on other things, have lost the consideration of God's works, in which they would daily give praise to the Creator, God has kept for himself certain unusual things which he would do, in order to rouse men, sleeping as it were, to worship him by marvels. A dead man rose again: men marveled. So many are born daily, and no one marvels. Yet if we consider more prudently, it is a greater miracle that one who was not should be, than that one who was should come to life again." And in On the Trinity 3, almost throughout the whole book, he proves the same by very many examples. C1 Hence in chapter 5 he says that the divine power, which administers the whole spiritual and corporeal nature, makes rain on fixed days every year; but when it made rain at the prayers of Elijah, as if against the natural disposition of the air, it was called a miracle. So God works lightnings and thunders; but when on Mount Sinai they occurred in an unusual manner, they seemed miracles. Who draws moisture through the root of the vine to the cluster and makes wine, if not God, who gives the increase while man plants and waters? But when at the nod of the Lord Water was turned into Wine with unusual swiftness, the divine power was made manifest even to fools, who confessed it. Who solemnly clothes shrubs with leaf and flower, if not God? Yet when the rod of the priest Aaron flowered, Divinity in a manner conversed with a doubting man. And certainly for all woods, and for the generating and forming of the flesh of all animals, earthly matter is common; and who makes them, if not he who said, that the earth should bring these forth, and who in that same word of his, by which he created, rules and acts?

From all these things it is clear enough that God, who does rare miracles, likewise does the other, customary works. Is not this also what the Apostle teaches in Romans 11, saying thus: D1 "From him and through him and in him are all things"? Is not this also one article of faith, as the Nicene creed attests, which teaches us to believe in God the Father, maker of all things visible and invisible, and in the Son through whom all things were made? Furthermore, God makes every man, and universally every Animal, wholly according to body and soul, and not natural agents alone; so by like reasoning he makes every thing made. For the Philosopher says in On Animals 11, in the old translation:10 "It must be said of the natures of Animals, whether it be the most noble or the ignoble, that the nature which created the animals will be the cause of great delight in those who can know the causes of nature, that is, the Philosophers of nature, when they consider it in a lowly animal. And on this account we ought to consider their forms, and delight in the Craftsman who made them, since the craft of the one who works is made manifest in the thing worked; for example, because in the making of images the knowledge of the craftsman appears. And on this account it is permitted that we look, or else that we not shun consideration, in the natures of lowly Animals; and let this not be burdensome to us as it is to children, for in all natural things there is something wonderful. And on this account we ought to inquire into the nature of every Animal, and to know that in all Animals there is a noble natural thing, since none of them was brought into nature idly or by chance; but however much there will be from the operations of nature, there will be none except for the sake of something; and everything that was or will be neither was nor will be except for the sake of something, and *E1 for completion,11 and on this account has a noble place and order." With this also agrees the saying of Averroes on Metaphysics 12, comment 19, set forth earlier in the second [chapter] of this [work].12

Is it not also for this reason that Job 10, speaking to God, says thus: "Your hands fashioned me, and made me whole all round,"13 according to the punctuation of blessed Gregory, Moralia 9, 26? And below: "Did you not milk me like milk, and curdle me like cheese? Did you not clothe me with skin and flesh, and put me together with bones and sinews?" And the Prophet: "Your hands made me, and fashioned me," A1 Psalm 118 [119]. Whence also the Lord of the Prophets: "Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you," Jeremiah 1. Therefore Augustine too, expounding that verse of Psalm 118 just cited, says it can be understood in two ways. In one way, according to Adam: since all men have been propagated from him, which of men, once he was made, cannot say that he too was made, by reason of origin and of seed? In another way: because each one is born not without the work of God even from parents, God himself creating while they generate; since if the operative power of God is withdrawn from things, they perish, and nothing at all is born, whether of the elements of the world, or of parents, or of seeds, if God does not work in them. The same, on Genesis according to the letter 9, 23:14 "What service the Angels rendered to God in that formation of the woman, who would dare to affirm? Yet I would say most certainly that that supplement of flesh in the place of the rib, and the body and soul of the woman herself, the conformation of the members, all the viscera, all the senses, and whatever it was by which she was both a creature and a human being and a woman, was made by none other than that work of God which God worked not through Angels but through himself, and did not abandon; but these works are continued, so that neither the nature of those other things nor that of the Angels themselves would subsist, if he did not work." Furthermore, God makes all plants, and natural agents alone do not suffice; so also all other things, by like reasoning. Is not this what the Apostle says in 1 Corinthians 3: B1 "Neither he who plants is anything, nor he who waters, but God who gives the increase"? So also Augustine, on Genesis according to the letter 9, 22, says that Farmers are not the creators of crops or trees: "For neither he who plants is anything, nor he who waters, but God who gives the increase." And he says that the Farmer makes nothing grow, but He who disposes all things in measure and number and weight, who gives the increase. Nor does the Physician, by applying medicines, heal the sick; but nature does that, by an interior motion most hidden from us; and if God were to withdraw from it the inmost operation by which he establishes and makes it, it would at once, as if extinguished, leave nothing remaining. The same, On the Trinity 3, 7: "The Apostle," he says, "distinguishing God who creates and forms inwardly from the works of the creature that are applied from outside, and taking a likeness from Agriculture, says: I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the increase. As, therefore, in our very life, none but God can form the mind by justifying it, while men can preach the Gospel outwardly; so God works inwardly the creation of visible things, but the outward operations, whether of good or evil Angels or men, or even of any Animals whatever, according to his command, and the distributions of powers and the ‖C1 appetites15 for advantages apportioned by himself, he thus applies to the nature of things, in which he creates all things, as the farmer applies cultivation to the earth." The Truth itself also truthfully attests this same thing of the Lilies and the Grass, that God thus clothes them, as is recounted in Matthew 6 and Luke 12.

The first: that no thing can do anything without God. 1.

The second: that no thing can do anything unless God through himself and immediately does that same thing. 2.

The third: that no thing can do anything unless God does that same thing more immediately than any other agent. 3.

From which it follows manifestly that no thing can do anything without God; and that no thing can do anything unless God through himself and immediately does that same thing, indeed even more immediately than any other agent: immediately, I say, not only locally but also naturally and causally, and more immediately in the same ways, or at least naturally and causally. For it is less to preserve a thing made in being than to make it from non-being; but by the Corollary of the second, no thing can preserve another thing made in being without God likewise preserving it, and this immediately, indeed more immediately than any other preserver; therefore neither can any thing make a thing from non-being without God likewise making it, and this immediately, indeed more immediately than any other maker. Again, every thing, just as it can make something, so also can preserve in being what is made and preservable, because this is easier. But if the opposite of the aforesaid corollary is granted, some thing can make something without God, or without God making the same thing immediately or more immediately. Therefore some thing can thus preserve something, against the aforesaid second corollary. The arguments also and the authorities adduced for that corollary prove this corollary. But if anyone should presume to say that God is said to do all things not because he does them immediately, through himself and properly, but only by means of the Heaven, and because he made natural agents and patients, or preserves them, or because he permits, or does not prevent, or defends against impediments, he will easily be refuted by what has been said above, just as the preceding chapter refuted a similar presumption of his.