summa-contra-gentiles

38 THE SUMMA CONTRA GENTILES
Hence the power in human seed cannot produce a brute
animal or a plant, and yet
it can produce a man who
surpasses the things mentioned. Secondly, on account of
the excellence of the effect, which surpasses the capacity of
the active power thus the active power of a body cannot
:
produce a separate substance. Thirdly, because the effect
requires a particular matter on which the agent cannot
act : thus a carpenter cannot make a saw, because his art
does not enable him to act on iron of which a saw is made.
Now in none of these ways can any effect be withheld from
the divine power. For neither on account of unlikeness in
the effect can anything be impossible to Him since :
every
thing, in so far as it has being, is like Him, as we have
^—
proved above nor : again on account of the excellence of
the effect : since it has been proved^ that God is above all
beings in goodness and perfection :— nor again on account
of a defect in matter, since He is the cause of matter, which
cannot be caused except by creation. Moreover in acting
He needs no matter : since He brings a thing into being
without anything pre-existent.^ Wherefore lack of matter
cannot hinder His action from producing
its
It remains therefore that God's power
effect.
is not confined to
any particular effect, but is able to do simply all things :
and this means that He is
almighty.
Hence also divine Scripture teaches this as a matter of
faith. For it is said (Gen. xvii. i) in the person
of God :
/ am the Almighty God: walk before Me and be perfect:
and (Job xlii. 2)
: I know that Thou canst do all things:
No word shall
and (Luke
i.
37) in the person of the angel :
be impossible with God.
Hereby is refuted the error of certain philosophers who
asserted that only one effect was immediately produced by
God, as though His power were confined to the production
thereof ;
and that God cannot do otherwise than act according
to the course of natural things, of which it is said
(Job xxii. 17): (Who) looked upon the Almighty as
. . .
if
He could do nothing.
*
Chs. vi., XV.
* Bk. I., chs. xxviii., xli.
' Ch. xvi.