Summa contra Gentiles3.65 Chapter LXV. That God preserves things in existence

it follows that He preserves them in existence.

For every thing whereby certain things obtain their end comes under the government of those things: because things are said to be governed or ruled according as they are directed because inasmuch as they exist they bear a likeness to the things be preserved in existence, Again. The cause of a thing must needs be the same as the cause of its preservation: because preservation is nothing else than continued existence. Now we have shown above? that God is the cause of every thing’s existence by His intellect and will. Therefore by His intellect and will He preserves things in existence.

Besides. No particular univocal agent can be the cause of its species simply: thus an individual man cannot be the cause of the human species, for then he would be the cause of every man, and consequently of himself, which is impossible. But properly speaking the individual is the cause of the individual. Now the individual man exists forasmuch as the human nature is in this particular matter which is the principle of his individuality. Therefore the human individual is not the cause of a man except in the point of his being the cause of the human form being in this particular matter: and this is to be the principle of the generation of this particular man. It is consequently evident that neither the cause except of the generation of an individual. Now there a CHS xix: 2 Bk. II., ch. xxiil. segq.

must needs be some fer se active cause of the human species; as is evidenced by his composite nature, and the order of his parts, which is always the same, unless it be hindered accidentally: and the same applies to all other species of natural things. This cause is God either mediately or immediately: for it has been shown that He is the first cause of all. Consequently He stands in relation to the species of things as in nature the individual generator to the generation of which He is the cause fey se. But generation ceases when the generator’s action ceases. Therefore all the species of things would cease, were the divine operation to cease. Therefore by His operation He preserves things in existence.

Moreover. Although movement may accidentally belong to an existing thing, it is something additional to the thing’s being. Now nothing corporeal is the cause of anything except in so far as it is moved; because no body acts except through movement, as Aristotle proves.” Therefore no body is the cause of a thing’s existence, as such, but it is the cause of a thing’s being moved towards existence, that is, of its becoming. Now the existence of a thing is participated existence, since no thing is its own existence, save God, as we proved above.? Consequently God who is His own being must be first and fer se the cause of all being. Accordingly the divine operation stands in the same rela- tion to the existence of things, as the movement of a corporeal mover to the being made and the being moved of things made or moved. Now it is impossible that a thing continue to be made or to be moved if the movement of the mover cease. Therefore a thing cannot possibly continue to exist except through the divine operation.

Further. As the operation of art presupposes the operation of nature, so the operation of nature presupposes the creative operation of God: because art takes its matter from—nature, and nature receives its matter from God through creation. Now the products of art are preserved in being by virtue of the products of nature; a house, for instance, Chapter LXV 157 by the solidity of the stones. Therefore all natural things Again. The impression of the agent does not remain in is that they merge into the nature: whereas dispositions and passions, whether in the body or in the soul, remain for a time after the action of the agent, but not for always, because they are in their subject as preparing a way to nature. On the other hand that which belongs to the nature of a higher genus nowise remains after the action of the agent: thus light does not remain in the diaphanous body after the illuminant has been removed. Now existence is not the nature or essence of any created thing, but of God alone, as was proved in the First Book. Therefore nothing could continue to exist, if the divirie operation were to cease. Further. There are two explanations of the origin of things. One is that proposed by faith, that things were first brought into being by God; the other is that: of certain philosophers holding that things emanated from God from to say that things are preserved in existence by God. For if things were brought into being by God after not being, their existence as well as their non-existence must result from the divine will: because He permitted things not to be when He so willed, and caused them to be when He so willed. Therefore they exist so long as He wills them to exist. Therefore His will is the preserver of things.—If on the other hand things emanated from God from eternity, we cannot assign a time or an instant when they first emanated from God. Either, therefore, they were never produced by God,. or their existence is always emanating from God, as long as they exist. Therefore He preserves things in existence by His operation. 2 Oh, sexi, 2 Cf. Bk. II., ch. xxxi.

Hence it is said (Heb. i. 3): Upholding all things by the word of His power. Augustine too, says (4 Super Gen. ad lit. xil.): The potency of the Creator, and the power of the Almighty and All-upholder, is the cause of every creature’s subsistence. If this ruling power were withdrawn from His creatures, their form would cease at once, and all nature would collapse. When a man ts building a house, and goes away, the building remains after he has ceased to work and has gone: whereas the world would not stand for a single instant, if God withdrew His support. Hereby is refuted the statement of certain authorities quoted in the law of the Moors,! who in order to be able to maintain that the world needs to be preserved by God, held that all forms are accidents, and that no accident lasts for two instants, so that things would always be in the process of formation: as though a thing needed not an active cause except while being made.—Wherefore some of them are stated to have maintained that the indivisible bodies of which, they say, all substances are composed, and which alone, according to them, have any} permanency, would be able for a time to remain in existence, if God were to with-—draw His government from things.—Some of these say indeed that things would not cease to exist unless God caused - in them the accident of ceasing-to-be.—All of which is plainly absurd.