summa-contra-gentiles

CHAPTER LXXXV 251
For it is stated at the same time (Gen. i.)^ that God ended
His work, and that He rested . . .
from all His work
which He had done. Since, then, the ending or perfecting
of creatures regards the species and not the individuals, so
God's rest must be understood to refer to the cessation
from forming new species, but not new individuals, the
have existed before. Accord-
like of which, in the species,
ingly, as all human souls are of one species, even as are all
men, it is not incompatible with the aforesaid rest if God
creates new souls from day to day.
It must, however, be observed that we do not find it
stated by Aristotle that the human intellect is eternal; and
yet he is wont to say this of those things which, in his
opinion, always have been. But he declares that it is
everlasting;^ and this can be said of those things that
always will be, although they have not always been.
Hence (11 Metaph.y in excluding the intellective soul from
the conditions of other forms, he did not say that this form
was before matter,
— and yet Plato said this of ideas, so that
it would seem consistent with the subject of which he*
was treating that he should say something of the kind of
the soul,
— but he said that it remains after the body.
THAT THE SOUL IS
CHAPTER LXXXV
NOT MADE OF GOD*S SUBSTANCE
From the foregoing
it is clear that the soul is not of God's
substance.
For it has been shown above^ that the divine substance
is eternal, and that nothing pertaining thereto begins anew.
Whereas human souls did not exist before bodies, as we
have proved.^ Therefore the soul cannot be of the divine
substance.
Moreover.
It was shown above^ that God cannot be the
* ii. 2.
» Cf. chs. Ixi., Ixiviii.
» D. 11, iii. 5.
* Aristotle. » Bk. I., ch. i\-.
*
Ch.Jlxrriii. seqq. » Bk. I., ch.»rxvii. seqq.