The third conclusion needs no proof, it being evident that whatever is created must tend to the end of its creation, which is the manifestation of the perfections of its creator. This manifestation implies action—viz., a transition of the first act to its second act. Accordingly, a first act which has no necessary ordination to second acts cannot be created.
The fourth conclusion follows from the third, since an uncreated act can be nothing else than the act by which God is. This act, inasmuch as it eminently contains the reality of all possible things, is extrinsically terminable, and as thus terminable it exhibits itself as a “first” act. But, since God has no need of creatures, such a first act has no need of extrinsic terminations, and, as first, it constitutes omnipotence, or God’s absolute power. This power in its infinite simplicity has an infinite range, as it extends to all conceivable reality.
The fifth conclusion will be easily understood by reflecting that the extrinsic termination of active power consists in giving existence to contingent things by efficient action. Now, to act efficiently does not bring about any intrinsic change in the agent; for all intrinsic change follows from passion, which is the opposite of action. Nor does God, when giving existence and active powers to any number of creatures, weaken his own power. For the power imparted to creatures is not a portion of the divine power, but a product of creation, and nothing, in fact, but the created act itself. For, as all contingent things are created for the manifestation of God’s perfections, all creatures must be active; and as everything acts as it is in act, the act being the principle of the acting, it follows that all act produced by creation is an active power of greater or less perfection according to the part it is destined to fill in the plans of its Maker. This shows that the act by which a creature is, bears a resemblance to the act by which God is, inasmuch as it virtually contains in itself all those acts which it is fit to produce according to its nature. But, since all contingent act is extrinsic to God, divine omnipotence is not entitatively and intrinsically more actuated by creation than by non-creation; though, if God creates any being, from the term produced he will acquire the real denomination of Creator. Thus the existence of a contingent being is the existence of a real term, which extrinsically terminates the virtuality of God’s act, in which it is eminently contained. Its relation to its Creator is one of total dependence; whilst God’s relation to it is that of first causality. The foundation of this relation is the action which proceeds from God and terminates in the creature.
The first part of the sixth conclusion, that beings produced by creation are extrinsic terms of God’s power, has just been explained. But we say, moreover, that the entitative distances between such beings have an extrinsic foundation in God’s omnipotence. By “entitative distance” we mean the difference in degree between distinct beings—v.g., between a man and a tree—as we have explained in another place.[154] And we say that, as the distance between two material points in space has its extrinsic foundation in the virtuality of God’s immensity, so also the entitative distance of two beings has its extrinsic foundation in the virtuality of God’s infinite act—that is, in divine omnipotence. In fact, the different degrees of entity conceivable between the tree and the man are all virtually contained in God’s omnipotence, just as all the distinct ubications possible between two points are virtually in God’s immensity. Hence the foundation of such entitative distances is extrinsic to the beings compared in the same manner as the foundation of local distances.
But the terms produced by creative action, inasmuch as they possess a greater or less perfection in their individual constitution, can be compared with one another according to the relative degree of their intrinsic reality; and thus, besides the extrinsic relation just mentioned, they have a mutual relativity arising from an intrinsic foundation. The relative degree of reality of a contingent being becomes known to us through the relative intensity of its active power; which implies that the beings compared have powers of the same species. If they are not of the same species, the comparison will give no result.
Remarks.—Before leaving this part of our subject, we have to notice that, as the ubication, so also the act produced by creation, can be considered both absolutely and respectively. A created act, considered absolutely, is an act intrinsically completed by its essential potency, and constitutes the being as it is in actu secundo. The same act, considered respectively, or as ordained to something else, is a power ready to act, and thus it is in actu primo with regard to all the acts which it is able to produce.
The essential act of a contingent being, be it considered absolutely or respectively, bears no proportion to the perfection of its Creator, no more indeed than a point in space to immensity, or a now of time to eternity. Hence all contingent act or power, whatever be its perfection or intensity, as compared with God, is like nothing. It is only when a created act or power is compared with another of the same kind that we can establish a proportion between them as to degrees of perfection and of intensity. These degrees are measured by comparing the relative intensities of the effects produced by distinct causes of the same kind, acting under the same conditions.
The quantity of efficient power may be conceived as a virtual sum of degrees of power. In this particular the quantity of power differs entirely from the quantity of distance; because this latter cannot be conceived as a virtual sum of ubications. The reason of this difference is that ubications, as being simple points, have no quantity, and therefore cannot by addition make up a continuous quantity; whereas the degrees of power always possess intensity, and are quantities; hence their sum is a quantity of the same kind.
It may be useful to remark that all continuous quantity has a necessary connection with the quantity of power, and that all extension owes its being to the efficacy of some motive principle. In fact, all intervals, whether of space or of time, are reckoned among continuous quantities only on account of the quantity of continuous movement which can be made, or is actually made, in them, as we have explained in a preceding article; but the quantity of movement is itself to be traced to the intensity of the momentum produced by the agent, and the momentum to the intensity of the motive power. As soon as movement is communicated to a point, its ubication begins to shift and to extend a continuous line in space; and its now, too, for the same reason begins to flow and to extend continuous time.