Part II, Chapter I, Section 1: First and Second Creation

Pohle, God the Author of Nature and the Supernatural, Part II, Chapter I, §1 (pp. 97–102)

Part II: Creation Passively Considered, or the Created Universe

By Creation in the passive sense (creari s. creatum esse) we understand the created universe or world (mundus). This, as its Greek name (κόσμος) indicates, is not a chaos, but a well-ordered, graduated, and articulated whole, consisting of three kingdoms, which rise one above the other: (1) The material universe, which embraces animals and plants, (2) the human race, and (3) the Angels.¹

Accordingly we shall treat of Creation passively considered, i.e., the created universe, in three Chapters, entitled respectively: (1) Cosmology, (2) Anthropology, and (3) Angelology.

Chapter I: Dogmatic Cosmology

Section 1: First and Second Creation

1. Definition of Terms

In respect of matter, both inorganic and organic, God’s creative operation is divided into two logically and really distinct functions, viz.: (1) The creation of primordial matter out of nothing, and (2) the formation of chaotic matter, i.e., the fashioning of earth and heaven, oceans and continents, plants and animals out of the primitive world-stuff.

The former of these two functions is called first creation (creatio prima). It is creation in the proper sense of the term. The second (creatio secunda) can be called creation only in a figurative or metaphorical sense. Creatio secunda may be said to partake of the nature of creation proper, inasmuch as no one but God in His omnipotence was able to fashion and form the cosmos. Active formation² has for its term or object passive formation, i.e., the things formed or fashioned. In this passive formation St. Thomas discriminates between distinctio and ornatus. The work of distinction or differentiation which God performed on the first three days of the Hexaemeron consisted in the separation of light from darkness, of the firmament from the waters below, and of the solid land from the sea. The work of ornamentation, which took place on the last three days, consisted in the allocation of the various celestial and terrestrial bodies, supplying the water with fishes, the air with birds, and the continents with plants and animals.

2. The Teaching of Divine Revelation

Revelation furnishes a sufficient basis for the distinction between first and second creation.

a) The book of Genesis begins by describing how God created all things out of nothing. Before He undertook the work of formation, which took six “days,” the earth was “void and empty,” and the light as yet undivided from the darkness; in other words, the universe was still in a chaotic state. To this twofold condition there corresponded a twofold operation on the part of the Almighty, viz.: creare and formare, which we call first and second creation. It is characteristic of the conception existing in the mind of the Sacred Writer that He does not describe the act of mere formation or ordering by the verb בָּרָא (bara), which he employed in the first verse, but by such verbs as עָשָׂה (asah) and יָצַר (yatsar), which are capable of being construed with a materia ex qua.³ The only exceptions to this rule are Gen. I, 21: “Creavit [Deus] cete grandia” — God created the great whales; and Gen. I, 27: “Et creavit Deus hominem … masculum et feminam creavit eos” — And God created man, … male and female he created them. With regard to these two passages it should be noted that in the one there is question of a true creation, viz.: the creation of the human soul; while the other is specially designed to show forth God’s omnipotence, which manifests itself with special grandeur in the creation of the huge ocean monsters. The playful ease with which the Creator produced these gigantic beings, proves that He is absolutely independent of matter and, therefore, at least indirectly demonstrates His creative power.

For a further confirmation of the distinction between first and second creation we may quote from Wisd. XI, 18 the phrase “ex materia invisa (scil. informi, ἐξ ἀμόρφου ὕλης).”⁴ It is no argument against our thesis that a distinction is made in Gen. I, 1 between “heaven” and “earth,” for heaven and earth were present at the Creation of the universe only with regard to their substance; they were not as yet divided off and moulded into shape, this took place later (Gen. I, 7–8).

b) The distinction between first and second creation is quite common in the writings of the Fathers. Thus Severian of Gabala (†after 408) says: “On the first day God created out of nothing (ἐξ οὐκ ὄντων) whatever He has made; but on the following days He did not create out of nothing (οὐκ ἐξ οὐκ ὄντων), but according to His good pleasure fashioned (μετεσκεύασεν) that which He had made on the first day.”⁵ The three Cappadocians expressed themselves in a similar manner.⁶

St. Augustine very distinctly insists on the concept of creatio secunda.⁷

In determining the nature of the materia informis out of which God gradually fashioned the cosmos in the course of six days, the Fathers were entirely dependent on the scientific theories prevalent in their day. In expounding these theories, needless to say, they do not represent Tradition, but merely the inadequate notions of an unscientific age, and we are not bound by their speculations. St. Chrysostom’s⁸ or St. Ephrem’s⁹ explanations of the process of Creation in the light of the peripatetic theory of the four elements (earth, water, air, and fire), have no more authority than the Patristic or Scholastic defense of the geocentric system of the universe, and we Catholics of the twentieth century are free to substitute for the crude hypotheses of the Patristic period the more solidly established conclusions of modern science, e.g., to regard the molecules as the proper object of the creatio prima and the various chemical compositions as the objects of the creatio secunda.

While, as we have shown, Revelation offers a solid basis for a real distinction between first and second creation and their products, it remains an open question whether or not the two processes were separated by a temporal interval. The great majority of the Fathers not only admit but positively assert an intermission between creatio prima and creatio secunda. It was only the great authority of St. Augustine that preserved later theologians from unduly limiting freedom of interpretation in regard to a question which, because of its relations to natural science, must be handled with the greatest reserve. St. Augustine’s own interpretation¹⁰ has, it is true, been generally rejected as forced and artificial; but St. Thomas,¹¹ though himself a defender of the theory of temporal succession, invariably speaks of the Augustinian theory with great respect, and many later theologians, especially those who in some form or other prefer the so-called ideal interpretation, base their right to espouse a less slavishly literal view upon the example of the learned and pious Bishop of Hippo.¹²

Notes

Readings

Palmieri, De Creatione et Praecipuis Creaturis, thes. 14–15, Romae 1910. Stentrup, De Deo Uno, thes. 78–79, Oeniponte 1875. Scheeben, Dogmatik, Vol. II, 144, Freiburg 1878 (Wilhelm-Scannell’s Manual, Vol. I, pp. 383 sqq.). Oswald, Schöpfungslehre, pp. 42 sqq., Paderborn 1885. G. B. Tepe, Instit. Theol., Vol. II, pp. 461 sqq., Paris 1895. Chr. Pesch, Praelect. Dogmat., Vol. III, 3rd ed., pp. 32 sqq., Friburgi 1908. Among the commentaries on Genesis we recommend especially those by Lamy, Hummelauer, and Hoberg.

Note on this transcription: this section opens Part II of the book, so the Part and Chapter introductions are included above the Section proper. Several Hebrew and Greek terms — the three Hebrew verbs contrasted in the discussion of Gen. I, 1 (bara/asah/yatsar), the Greek phrases in Severian of Gabala’s quotation, and κοινῇ in the Augustine footnote — were reconstructed from garbled OCR characters; the two less common Hebrew verbs (asah, yatsar) are given with slightly less certainty than the rest, since the source text does not spell out which second verb it has in mind beyond “such verbs as.”