Anisotropy of Magnetic Susceptibility (AMS)

God, then, has the ability to create, but one might ask whether God must create, or does God create because God wills to create. Aquinas argues clearly and consistently that God does not create due to some natural necessity on God’s part. Nothing in God’s nature requires that God creates, Aquinas writes, and he offers several arguments to that end. It is interesting to note, though, that Aquinas does not offer any arguments that God creates by will in the Summa Theologiae: there, he instead argues more generally that God acts by will, and one can presumably apply this fact to all of God’s acts, including creation. In both his Summa Contra Gentiles and On the Power of God, Aquinas offers what may be grouped as three

arguments with the conclusion that God acts by will in creating. In the first argument, the conclusion is that God’s action is not determined to one effect, and thus God must act by will. In the second, the conclusion is that God acts for an end, and an agent can act for an end only by will. In the third, the conclusion is that every effect is in its cause in some way, and God causing by intellect and will explain how this is possible.

In the first argument, Aquinas begins with the premise that nature determines an agent’s action to one effect.²⁷⁷ In the right circumstances, the agent will produce that one effect.²⁷⁸ For example, an animal bred under the right circumstances will produce a more of that kind of animal, but it will not produce a different kind of animal.²⁷⁹ Voluntary effects, though, may or may not occur in a variety of circumstances.²⁸⁰ A person may will at time t₁, while he is watching television, to read a book, and he might watch television days later

277 Aquinas, SCG II.23; Aquinas, On the Power of God 3.15.

278 Aquinas, SCG II.23.

279 This, of course, is true most of the time but not all of the time. A horse can be bred with a donkey to produce a mule. Aquinas (and Aristotle, for that matter) would likely have been unaware of this odd

circumstance. However, the principle holds for an animal bred with the same kind of animal. When a horse is bred with a horse, a foal is produced. When a dolphin is bred with a dolphin, a dolphin is produced.

280 Aquinas, SCG II.23.

without then willing to read a book. His willing to read a book is related to but not

contingent upon his circumstances. Another feature of voluntary effects is that an agent may will many things. Instead of willing to read a book while watching television, a man could easily will to go for a walk or call his spouse or water the plants. In exactly similar

circumstances, he may will to do different things at different times. Notice, again, that each of these examples of things he might will are things he has the ability to perform. With regard to the divine will, Aquinas notes that God has the power to perform anything that is not logically impossible, that is, that does not imply a logical contradiction.²⁸¹ God’s act, then, is not ordered to one effect only.²⁸²

Aquinas offers an interesting variation of this argument. Instead of focusing on God’s power, he focuses on the fact that an agent acting by nature produces an effect that is its equal.²⁸³ A dolphin produces another dolphin, which is an effect that is equal to itself.

Unless a natural agent is hindered by a defect, either in itself or in its patient, it will always produce an effect equal to itself.²⁸⁴ The world, however, is not filled entirely with effects that are equal to their causes. This is true in two ways. First, if God created by nature, then the universe would have to be equal to God; but given the fact that nothing can be equal to God, this is impossible. Second, the creatures populating the universe are not equal to each other:

humans are more advanced creatures than felines, and felines are more advanced creatures

281 Aquinas, SCG II.22. Aquinas offers a separate argument to this effect in this chapter. He says that whatever does not imply contradiction is subject to God’s power. Numerous entities—both those which actually exist and those which can merely be thought of—are things which do not imply contradiction. However, God does only some of these things (as evidenced by the fact that not all of these non-contradictory beings exist).

Aquinas introduces the premise that any time an agent could do a number of things but does only some of them, the agent has exercised its will. So, God must have exercised God’s will in determining what to create.

Therefore, God acts by will and not natural necessity in creating. Given the similarities between this argument and the premise noted in the argument above, I will not be discussing this argument separately.

282 Aquinas, SCG II.23.

283 Aquinas, On the Power of God 3.15.

284 Aquinas, On the Power of God 3.15.

than poinsettias.²⁸⁵ So, either God is hindered by some defect or else God wills these inequalities to exist. Aquinas resoundingly rejects the first disjunct: God is not hindered by some defect in God’s nature because God is perfect, and God is not hindered by some defect in the patient, for no patient underlies creation.²⁸⁶ Accordingly, the only remaining explanation for the inequality in the universe is God’s will.

In the second argument, Aquinas begins with the premise that, according to his interpretation of Aristotle’s Metaphysics Λ, the universe is ordered toward an end.²⁸⁷ In order for the universe to be directed toward an end, the universe must be directed by an intellect.²⁸⁸ While it is true that agents acting by nature do act for an end, an agent acting by nature does not have any knowledge of the end for which it acts. An agent acting by nature just happens to act toward an end because it is, by nature, directed toward an end. An agent acting by nature does not determine its own end. Instead, something else has determined the end toward which that agent would act by its nature.²⁸⁹ So, even natural agents that act toward an end must be directed toward that end by some intelligent agent. Since the agents in the universe act toward an end, the agent responsible for the universe must be an intelligent

285 For Aquinas, this is a crucial point to make. Aquinas subscribes to species essentialism, which means that each member of a species (here, specifically species of material beings) belongs to that species essentially. A human belongs to the species of humanity because that is simply what it means to be a human. With respect to his argument here, this view means that a human cannot come from anything other than a human. So, there is no way to explain how these diverse, unequal creatures can coexist. One cannot appeal to a theory akin to Darwinian evolution to explain the origins of creatures, for it is, in Aquinas’s reckoning, simply impossible that an elephant could come—through thousands (if not millions) of years and thousands of smaller changes in response to environmental pressures—from a whale. An animal cannot change species because if that animal exists, it is a member of a species. Animals do not change species, so the inequality between animals must have some other explanation. The only explanations Aquinas can fathom is that some being is responsible for creating these inequalities (and thus this creator acts by will, or else there would not be inequalities) or these inequalities are the result of chance. Given the fact that Aquinas later argues that the universe has an end, he will reject the latter option. Chance cannot explain these inequalities. For Aquinas’s species essentialism, see Joseph Bobik, Aquinas on Being and Essence: A Translation and Interpretation (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame, 1965), 119.

286 Aquinas, On the Power of God 3.15.

287 Aquinas refers to Metaphysics XI.10 (1075a 12).

288 Aquinas, SCG II.223.

289 Aquinas, On the Power of God 3.15.

agent that can direct others toward an end. Accordingly, this intelligent agent creates not by nature but by will, which is informed by knowledge.²⁹⁰

The third argument Aquinas presents begins with the premise that effects are like their causes in some way. Aquinas explains this purported likeness by asserting that the effect must preexist in the causing agent in some way.²⁹¹ And whatever preexists in the causing agent must exist in the mode of the causing agent. Because God is an immaterial, intellectual being, the effects must preexist in God’s intellect.²⁹² Aquinas then asserts that the intellect produces an effect only by the exercise of the agent’s will.²⁹³ The will executes what is in the intellect, and the intellect moves the will.²⁹⁴ Accordingly, God must act by God’s will when God creates.

It is now clear that Aquinas takes God creating to be an act of will. God does not act to create because God’s nature makes God act. Instead, God acts because God wills to act.

As noted above, Aquinas draws a close connection between knowledge and will. Knowledge moves the will to act, and thus God’s knowledge moves the will to act. As with Avicenna, one might object that divine simplicity, which entails that God’s essence is identical to God’s knowledge, means that God’s actions are indeed necessitated by God’s nature. However, Aquinas could respond (like Avicenna) that an agent acting by its nature performs an action that does not involve its will. Because God’s action does involve God’s will—even in its identity with God’s essence—this action is a volitional action.

290 Aquinas, On the Power of God 3.15; SCG II.23.

291 Aquinas, On the Power of God 3.15.

292 Aquinas, On the Power of God 3.15; SCG II.23.

293 Aquinas, SCG II.23.

294 Aquinas, On the Power of God 3.15.