summa-contra-gentiles

26 THE SUMMA CONTRA GENTILES
one genus, as contraries, for instance in the movement of
growth and alteration, and when a thing
is carried from
one place to another ;
or because they have one potentiality
of matter in common, as privation and form in generation
and corruption. But neither of these applies to creation :
for it admits of no potentiality, nor of anything of the same
genus that may be presupposed to creation, as we have
proved.^ Therefore there is neither movement nor change
therein.
Further. In every change or movement there must be
something that is conditioned otherwise now and before:
since the very name of change shows this.^ But when the
whole substance of a thing
is
brought into being, there can
be no same thing that is conditioned in one way and in
for it would not be produced, but presupposed to
another,
production. Therefore creation is not a change.
Further. Movement and change must needs precede
that which is made by change or movement : because
having been made is the beginning of rest and the term of
movement. Wherefore all change must be movement or
the term of a movement that is successive. For this reason,
what is
being made, is not for as long as movement : lasts,
something is being made and is not : whereas in the term
itself of movement, wherein rest begins, no longer is a
thing being made, but it has been made. Now in creation
this is impossible for : if creation preceded as movement or
change, it would necessarily presuppose a subject, and this
is contrary to the nature of creation. Therefore creation is
neither movement nor change.
CHAPTER XVIII
HOW TO SOLVE THE OBJECTIONS AGAINST CREATION
From this we may see the vacuity of those who gainsay
creation by arguments taken from the nature of movement
and change
: such as that creation must needs, like other
1 Ch. xvi.
«
5 Pkys. i. 7.