Article 3: Creation as a Free Divine Act

Pohle, God the Author of Nature and the Supernatural, Part I, Chapter I, §2, Article 3 (pp. 40–49)

It belongs to the treatise on the Essence and Attributes of God to prove that the Divine Will is essentially free.¹ Here we have merely to show that, in creating the universe, God acted as a free agent, and, more specifically, that He acted libertate contradictionis sive exercitii and libertate specificationis, not, however, libertate contrarietatis, which latter term means freedom of choice between good and evil.

Thesis I: Creation was a free act, libertate contradictionis, i.e., God was free either to create or not to create, as He pleased.

This proposition is de fide.

Proof. The Council of Florence (A.D. 1439) defined: “Deus, quando voluit, bonitate sua universas … condidit creaturas” — God in His goodness created all things, when He willed.² The Vatican Council (A.D. 1870), with an eye to the heretical teachings of Hermes and Günther, further developed this definition as follows: “[Deus] liberrimo consilio … utramque de nihilo condidit naturam, spiritualem et corporalem, angelicam videlicet et mundanam” — God, with absolute freedom of counsel, created out of nothing … both the spiritual and the corporeal creature, to wit, the angelical and the mundane.³ And in Canon 5 the Council adds: “Si quis … Deum dixerit non voluntate ab omni necessitate libera, sed tam necessario creasse, quam necessario amat se ipsum, … anathema sit” — If any one … shall say that God created, not by His will, free from all necessity, but by a necessity equal to the necessity whereby He loves Himself, … let him be anathema.³

Holy Scripture teaches this truth in numerous passages, especially in those which accentuate the fact that God “hath done all things whatsoever he would.”⁴ The dogma is enforced as it were by contrast in 2 Mach. VIII, 18: “Nos in omnipotente Domino, qui potest … universum mundum uno nutu delere, confidimus” — We trust in the Almighty Lord, who at a beck can utterly destroy … the whole world. God cannot destroy at a beck except what He has freely created. We have a still more definite statement of this truth in Apoc. IV, 11: “Tu creasti omnia, et propter voluntatem tuam erant et creata sunt” — Thou hast created all things; and for thy will they were, and have been created. St. Paul writes: “Operatur omnia secundum consilium voluntatis suae” — He worketh all things according to the counsel of his will.⁵ Where there is “counsel” there must be liberty.

The teaching of the Fathers on this point is in perfect consonance with Holy Scripture. St. Irenaeus says: “Ipse omnia libere fecit et quemadmodum voluit” — He made all things freely and according to His will,⁶ and Hippolytus: “He created even as He would, for He was God.”⁷ St. Ambrose exclaims: “Quid difficile est ei, cui velle fecisse est?” — What is difficult for Him to whom to will means to do?⁸ We close the Patristic argument with a brief quotation from the works of St. Augustine: “He made [the universe] with an absolutely free will.”⁹

Reason argues thus: If God had not been free in creating the universe, He must have acted under compulsion either from without (coactio), or from within (necessitas ab intrinseco). God cannot have acted under external compulsion, because no higher Being existed which could have exercised such compulsion. Nor can He have been actuated by immanent necessity, because in this hypothesis He would not be infinitely perfect, nor self-sufficient, nor absolutely independent (ens a se). Consequently, God was free either to create or not, according to His good pleasure.

Thesis II: The divine act of Creation was free, libertate specificationis; that is, God was free to create either this present universe or any other.

This thesis may be technically qualified as doctrina catholica.

Proof. The Provincial Council of Cologne (A.D. 1860)¹⁰ defines: “Quemadmodum penes Deum erat, mundum creare aut non creare, ita penes ipsum etiam erat, hunc creare mundum aut alium” — As it lay in the power of God to create or not to create a world, so it also lay in His power either to create this particular world, or a different one.¹¹

a) The Scriptural argument for this thesis is based upon the sovereignty whereby God ordains all things according to His good pleasure. Ps. CXXXIV, 6: “Omnia, quaecunque voluit, Dominus fecit in coelo, in terra, in mari et in omnibus abyssis” — Whatsoever the Lord pleased he hath done, in heaven, in earth, in the sea, and in all the deeps. Theodoret comments upon this text as follows: “The Lord created all things whatsoever He pleased, as Holy Scripture testifies. He did not, however, will all that it lay in His power to do, but only what seemed to Him to be sufficient. For it would have been easy for Him to create ten or twenty thousand worlds.”¹²

For the rest, it is easy to see, even without the aid of Revelation, that, had God had no other choice than to create or not to create the present cosmos, there would be but one possible world — a view repugnant to the attribute of divine omnipotence, which halts only at contradiction; incompatible also with divine wisdom and perfection, for it is peculiar to wisdom to select and vary creatable forms with the utmost freedom; while God would not be infinitely perfect if His Essence could be the exemplar of but one creatable world.

b) Absolute Optimism is incompatible with Catholic teaching. This philosophical system, excogitated by Leibniz,¹³ holds that the Divine Intellect, in contemplating an infinite number of possible worlds, was constrained by the divine wisdom and goodness to select, and that the divine power was forced to create, that which was absolutely the best, i.e., the world in which the greatest number of realities harmoniously co-exist.¹⁴ The idea of an “absolutely best world” involves an intrinsic contradiction, because in the domain of finite objects there can be no summum bonum or absolute optimum. The Leibnizian conceit is also disproved by experience, which shows that the universe is seriously disfigured by evil. No sane person will deny that a world in which there was no sin, and no misery caused by sin (such as pain and death, sickness and poverty), would be a far “better” world than the one in which we now live. But even if such a thing as an absolutely “best” world were conceivable, the Creator would be under no compulsion to produce it. For no matter whether He makes things great or small, perfect or imperfect, God is sufficient unto Himself, and nowise depends on His creatures. In the words of St. Augustine: “Deus nulla necessitate, nulla suae cuiusquam utilitatis indigentia, sed sola bonitate fecit, quod factum est” — God made the world not because He was compelled to make it, or because He needed it for any advantage of His own, but out of sheer goodness.¹⁵

It is to be remarked, however, that not all forms of Optimism are irrational and repugnant. The relative Optimism advocated by Ruiz and Palmieri, and even by some of the Fathers of the Church,¹⁶ is supported by solid arguments and carefully safeguards the liberty of the Creator. The present universe may be regarded as the best in a relative sense, i.e., in so far as it is perfectly consonant to the divine idea, adequately serves the purpose for which it was created, and embraces all possible species of natural¹⁷ and supernatural perfection.¹⁸

Thesis III: The divine act of Creation was not, however, a free act libertate contrarietatis; that is to say, God was not free to create a bad world; He could create none but a good world.

Proof. By a bad world we understand, not one in which there is physical evil (disease, pain, death), but one replete with sin. Evil in its primary and proper sense is sin. But God, who is absolutely holy, cannot be the author of sin. In this sense our thesis is an article of faith, defined as such by the Fourth Lateran Council, and also by the Councils of Florence¹⁹ and Trent. The Tridentine canon says: “Si quis dixerit, non esse in potestate hominis, vias suas malas facere, sed mala ita ut bona Deum operari, non permissive tantum, sed etiam proprie et per se, anathema sit” — If any one say that it is not in the power of man to make his ways evil, but that God worketh evil in the same manner that He worketh good, not by permitting it, but properly speaking and per se, let him be anathema.²⁰

Of the Fathers we will only cite Augustine, who says: “Naturas igitur Deus omnes fecit, non solum in virtute et iustitia mansuras, sed etiam peccaturas, non ut peccarent, sed ut essent ornatura universi, sive peccare sive non peccare voluissent” — God therefore created all beings, not only those which were to persevere in virtue and justice, but those also which were to sin; and He created them not in order that they should sin, but that they should be an ornament to the universe, regardless of whether they would will to sin or not.²¹

This dogma is denied by Pessimism, which has justly been called “an error that is contemporaneous with philosophic thought.” Its traces appear in every stage of history.²² Arthur Schopenhauer may be regarded as its chief and most consistent exponent. He holds that the existing universe is the worst imaginable; that it is, in fact, a veritable hell in which “man is the devil of his fellows,” and that its only natural end and object apparently is, to be whelmed in utter destruction.²³ Such a theory is plainly repugnant to faith and reason. We will not deny that the problem of evil, which has baffled so many thinkers since the days of the Gnostics and Manichaeans, is one of the most difficult in philosophy.²⁴ But the Pessimism of Schopenhauer is opposed to common sense, which tells us that evil does not preponderate in the world; that side by side with physical and moral evil there exists an immense amount of good; that even where it takes the form of sin, evil is oftentimes the source of good which would otherwise remain undone; and, lastly, that a fair equalization and the restoration of the right order, which is partially disturbed here on earth, can only be expected in the world beyond. If we duly consider all these things we shall be persuaded that relative Optimism will ultimately prevail. The most satisfactory solution of “the riddle of the painful earth” is that offered by Christianity; in fact, “the existence of evil is a serious difficulty in the way of accepting any non-theistic interpretation of the universe.”²⁵

According to Catholic teaching man was originally destined for a life of innocence and bliss. He fell from his high estate through his own fault. The Son of God descended from Heaven to redeem the sinful human race, and through His merits this present life of pain and sorrow will be followed by one of unending happiness for those who faithfully obey the divine will. Our Redeemer, who has justly been styled the “Man of Sorrows,” furnishes a splendid pattern for the heroic endurance of this terrestrial exile, which lasts but a short while and affords us an opportunity to accumulate rich merits for the life beyond. In the cross of Christ lies our salvation and reconciliation; its glory dispels the terrors to which evil has given birth.²⁶

Notes

Note on this transcription: as with Article 1, the source scan has several places (footnotes 15/18 in particular) where two footnote columns were interleaved during OCR at page breaks, and several footnote-number superscripts are misprinted digits in the scan (e.g., 9 as “i”, 19 as “16”, 23/25/26 as “28”/“2B”). These were resolved by cross-matching each citation’s content to its marker in the body text; the body text itself reads cleanly throughout.