3.
In Thomas Aquinas the temptation to emanation-
ism is overcome, and creationism is more
clear-cut.
Aquinas' God is changeless, transcendent in being and
in
self-knowledge. He is, nevertheless, immanent in the
world without its
changing Him in any respect. Noth-
ing but God's
own being and free decision determine
the “moment” of
creation or the duration and quantity
of the created world. For Aquinas the
question whether
God can be God without the world is not answerable
with logical necessity.
Aquinas concentrates on understanding how the one
eternally perfect God can
maintain his Unity and Per-
fection in
creating both the many individuals and their
forms of being. The
controlling analogy here is that
of an artist whose quality is expressed
not in one work
alone but in a variety that express his quality, and
together display the many aspects of his perfection.
Aquinas' God, accordingly, creates individuals within
species, but the
individuals are concrete, graded ways
that bring out the richness possible
in each species.
For example, eyes are eyes; they perform their
limited
function in all beings. But they, with other limited parts
of
the body, go to make up the harmony of the body.
Similarly no species can
express the perfection of God,
for each species is limited. But the
hierarchy of limited
species, each with its imperfect but definite
members
are—all taken together—concrete
manifestations of the
perfection of God. God, in freely creating,
perforce
creates finite forms of his perfection; but their rich
variety and hierarchical gradations together express the
perfection of his
handiwork.
There is a certain power in this argument once it
is seen that the Creator
and the created cannot be of
the same quality in every respect. In Gilson's
words:
“No creature receives the whole fulness of divine
goodness because perfections come from God to crea-
tures by a kind of descent” (p. 155). But must the
Perfection, expressed in limited creatures, also include
their
imperfections? Must the eyes be imperfect eyes?
Granting that evil has no
independent power but is
the absence of good as defined for a given kind
of
creature, does the actual distribution of natural good
and evil add
up to perfection?
But Aquinas' main metaphysical model is clear. A
self-sufficient God
expresses his perfection in creating.
The creative activity changes the
Creator no more,
presumably, than the knowing process changes what
is
known. God is not a member of any genus but he
is the principle and cause
of every genus. Were He
incapable of creating in accordance with his will
and
reason, he would not be perfect. Only this kind of
being, never
Himself nonbeing, can create ex nihilo.
Yet
to create is to create some limited order of being
as distinct from every
other. This entails at best the
creation of mutually supporting beings and
of mutually
supporting parts within them. These beings come into
being
and go out of being, within the limits of the
divine plan. Their ultimate
nature is not theirs to
constitute or reconstitute; they affect and are
affected
in accordance with their particular created consti-
tutions. Persons, however, have
limited freedom, which
can be strengthened by God's grace, which is
respected
by God even when it is abused.
