On Creation
By Johannes Wollebius [Compendium Theologiae Christianae. Editio Novissima. 1655, pp. 33-39.]
[Translated using Claude AI Opus 4.5. The original Latin (transcription and original text) is linked below.]1
CHAPTER V.
In which CONCERNING CREATION.
So much concerning the internal works of God. The external works are those which occur outside the essence of God.
And they are both Creation and the Governance of Creatures, or the Actual Providence of God.
Creation is that by which God produced the World and the things which are in it, partly from nothing, partly from matter naturally unfit, for the manifestation of the glory of His Power, Wisdom, and Goodness.
The history of Creation is found in Gen. 1 and 2.
CANONS.
I. To create is not only to make something from nothing, but also to produce something from unfit matter, beyond the powers of nature.
II. The work and honor of creation ought to be attributed to no creature, not even to the angels, but to God alone.
III. Creation is a transition from potency to act, not of the Creator, but of the creature.
IV. That potency is not privative, but negative.
Because the matter of creation is by its nature unfit for that which is created from it. For example: In the dust there was no aptitude or disposition for the human body to be so skillfully and miraculously constructed from it.
V. By the creation of the World, no perfection accrued to God; nor did He make the World so that from it some good might return to perfect Himself, but so that He might communicate His goodness to creatures.
VI. Creation is either of a species together with all its individuals, just as the angels, the stars, and the elements were created at once; or it is of a species together with certain individuals, endowed with an implanted power of propagation.
VII. We leave the more specialized knowledge of creatures to the natural philosophers: it will suffice in this place to consider them according to the individual days of creation.
VIII. The first day of creation is distinguished by three works.
1. The creation of the angels together with the supreme heaven (called the heaven of the blessed). The creation of the angels is nowhere better assigned than to the first day: because when God had founded the earth, He was already being celebrated by them. Job 38:7.
2. The production of the matter of this visible world, which was not entirely lacking in all form, but was destitute of the perfection, separation, and adornment which it afterward gradually received.
3. The introduction of the primordial light: which light indeed was neither elemental fire, nor a luminous cloud, nor any other body, but a quality sent forth by God (who is unapproachable light) into the air, but afterward on the fourth day implanted in the stars.
IX. On the second day, the expanse was established, called the air or the aerial heaven, which in its lower part distinguishes between the upper waters, that is, the clouds, and the lower waters, namely the sea.
X. On the third day God,
1. Separated the lower waters still surrounding the earth, and confined them to certain channels, so that the remaining land, called dry, might provide a suitable dwelling for man and the animals.
2. Imparted to the earth, while no seed yet existed, no sun existed, a power of producing vegetation, for bringing forth plants and trees.
XI. On the fourth day the stars and luminaries were placed in the heaven: the motion of which arises not from a soul or an assisting intelligence, as the philosophers fable, but from a power divinely implanted: just as the earth stands unmoved by its implanted virtue.
XII. The use of the stars is threefold.
1. The distinction of day and night. 2. The marking of the seasons and periods of the year. 3. The communication of influences upon things below.
XIII. On the fifth day the birds, fish, and reptiles were created.
XIV. On the sixth day, when the land animals also had been produced, and thus this whole world had been furnished like a most ample house equipped with every kind of furnishing, He also made man.
Of these creatures, theology considers especially the angels and men, inasmuch as God conferred His image upon them.
CANONS.
I. Although the whole world is a mirror of divine power, wisdom, and goodness, yet properly the image of God is attributed only to angels and men.
II. The image of God consists partly in natural gifts, namely the simple and invisible substance, life, intellect, will, and immortality of the angels and of the human soul; partly in supernatural gifts, namely primeval blessedness, rectitude of intellect and will, and majesty and dominion over the remaining creatures.
Angels are intelligent spirits, free from body.
CANONS.
I. Angels are not accidents, nor qualities, but true subsistences.
II. Angels are free from corporeal mass and destruction.
III. The bodies in which angels appeared were not mere phantasms, nor yet hypostatically united to them, but freely assumed for the sake of a particular ministry.
IV. Angels are in a place not circumscriptively, but definitively.
V. Angels cannot be in many places at once.
VI. Angels truly move from place to place.
Man is a creature consisting of a body originally formed from the earth, but afterward propagated by the transmission of seed; and of a rational soul divinely implanted.
We do not here disapprove of the definition of the philosophers, by which they say that man is a rational animal. Meanwhile, for our purpose in the theological school, we more correctly describe man in this manner.
I. A threefold miraculous production of the human body is handed down in the Scriptures. The first, from the dust of the earth without father and mother. The second, from the rib of Adam without mother. The third, from the blood of the blessed Virgin, without father.
II. The human soul is not propagated by the transmission of seed, but is placed in the body after being immediately created by God.
Concerning the creation of man, Moses writes thus, Genesis 2:7: The Lord breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; thus man became a living soul. In which place three things are mentioned. First, the immediate creation of the soul; for it is called the breath of God. Second, its inspiration; for he says, and he breathed into his nostrils. Third, the hypostatic union of body and soul; and he became a living soul, metonymically, that is, an animated living being. Moreover, that even today the soul, created by God from nothing, is breathed into man, the following reasons prove. I. Because otherwise our soul would be from a different source than the soul of Adam; ours, namely, from preexisting matter, but Adam’s from none. Nor can it be objected here that the manner of generation is one thing, the manner of creation another; for nothing is generated from matter except what was also created from matter in the beginning. II. Because the soul of Christ was not from the transmission of seed; for He was conceived not by the agency of a man, but by the operation of the Holy Spirit from the blood of the Blessed Virgin. III. Because Scripture speaks of the origin of our souls as a work of creation, not of nature. Job 33:4: The Spirit of God made me, and the breath of the Almighty gave me life. Zechariah 12:1: The Lord stretches out the heavens, founds the earth, and forms the spirit of man within him. Where it is manifestly reckoned among the works of creation. IV. Because the genesis of each thing is such as its analysis. But this is the analysis of man, that the body returns to dust, but the spirit returns to God. Ecclesiastes 12:9. Since therefore in the analysis of man the spirit returns immediately to God, it was undoubtedly made immediately by Him. V. Because Scripture openly distinguishes between the fathers of bodies and of spirits. Hebrews 12:9. VI. Because the soul is indivisible and therefore is produced only from nothing. VII. Because if it were generated by transmission, it would be generated either from the soul, or from the body, or from body and soul together. But it is not generated from the soul; because nothing is generated from what is incorruptible. Not from the body; because it is not corporeal. Not from body and soul together; because it would be partly corporeal, partly incorporeal. If therefore it is produced from nothing, it is produced by God alone, whose alone it is to make something from nothing.
III. The physical axioms, like generates like and man generates man, nevertheless remain true in this matter; both because man generates man, person generates person; and because through the agency of the parents the body is generated as the subject of the soul, and it is united with the soul implanted by God, and finally by birth the whole man is brought forth into the light.
It is no objection that man is indeed the efficient cause of man, but not according to all parts. For just as he is said to kill a man who destroys only the body, so man is said to generate man, even if he does not generate the soul.
Nor is man in this respect more ignoble than other living things; since rather for this reason the generation of man is more excellent, because the immediate operation of God concurs with the operation of nature.
IV. The human soul is immortal, not absolutely, in the sense that it cannot be reduced to nothing by God; but by the ordinance of God, in that it cannot be destroyed by secondary causes.
V. The faculties of the soul differ really from the soul, as a quality or proper accident differs from its subject.
The reason is drawn from experience; because when the faculties of the soul have been impaired, its essence has remained intact.
VI. Its faculties are either merely organic, as the vegetative and sensitive faculties; or are such only in part and for a time, as the intellect and will. The former do not exert themselves when the body is corrupted; the latter both can exert themselves without the ministry of the body, and do exert themselves when the body is destroyed.
VII. Freedom from coercion exists as an essential property of the will. For otherwise the will would be a non-will.
