ARTICLE II

CAN GOD ENABLE A CREATURE TO KEEP ITSELF IN EXISTENCE BY ITSELF AND WITHOUT GOD'S ASSISTANCE?

THE second point of inquiry is whether God can make a creature able of itself to keep itself in existence independently of God: and seemingly he can do so.

             1. To create is more than to keep oneself in existence. Now a creature could have received the power to create according to the Master (Sent. v, 4). Therefore it could have received the power to keep itself in existence.

             2. The power of God over things surpasses the power of our intellect. Now our intellect can understand a creature apart from God. Much more therefore can God make a creature able of itself to keep itself in existence.

             3. There is a creature made to God's image (Gen. i, 26). Now according to Hilary (De Synod. an image is the undivided and united likeness of one thing adequately representing another: so that an image can be adequate to the thing of which it is the image. Seeing then that God needs no other to keep him in existence, it would seem that he could communicate this to a creature.

             4. The more perfect the agent the more perfect an effect can it produce. Now natural agents can produce effects which are able to remain in existence without their causes. Therefore a fortiori God can do this.

             On the contrary God can do nothing that is prejudicial to his own authority: and it would be prejudicial to his dominion if anything could exist without his upholding it. Therefore God cannot do this.

             I answer that God's omnipotence does not imply that he can make two contradictories true at the same time. Now the statement that God can produce a thing which does not need to be upheld by him involves a contradiction. For we have already proved that every effect depends on its cause in so far as it is its cause. Accordingly the statement that a thing needs not God to uphold its existence implies that it is not created by God: while the statement that such a thing is produced by God implies that it is created by him. Wherefore just as it would involve a contradiction to say that God produced a thing that was not created by him, even so it would involve a contradiction were one to say that God made a thing that did not need to be kept in existence by him. Wherefore God is equally unable to do either.

             Reply to the First Objection. Since to create is to be the cause of something, and only that which has no cause needs not to be kept in existence by another, it is clear that not to need to be kept in existence by another is more than to create: even as to have no cause is more than to be a cause. Moreover it is not altogether true that the power of creating is communicable to a creature, seeing that it is the act of the first agent as we have shown above (Q. iii, A. 4).

             Reply to the Second Objection. Although the intellect is able to understand a creature without understanding God, it cannot understand a creature not being kept in existence by God, since this involves a contradiction, as if one were to say that a creature is not created by God, as stated above (Q. iii, A. 5).

             Reply to the Third Objection. Equality is essential to an image, not absolutely speaking but of a perfect image: such an image of God is not a creature but the Son of God; wherefore the argument proves nothing.

             The Reply to the Fourth Objection may be gathered from what has been already said in the preceding answer.