THOMAS AQUINAS ON CREATION EX NIHILO AND GENERATION OF A HUMAN

Abstract

Abstract. Introduction. The article is dedicated to the issue of generation in Thomistic philosophy as a result of a union between Christianity with its creeds of creation as it is described in the Holly Scripture, and ancient philosophy, specifically, on the basis of aristotelism, which appeals to the word formation involving different agents instead of only superior Creator. The main problem is connected with the fact that indifferent Prime Mover, as it is shown by Aristotle, highly contradict the very idea of caring God who is engaged into lives of created things. Purpose. The main purpose of the article is to show the link between processes of animate and inanimate creation ex nihilo, as well as, to demonstrate the co-dependence between the notion of creation with the act-potency ideas as the most significant conceptions of metaphysics. Methods. The method of original sources analysis (textological method) was useful for explaining the main concepts of Aquinas, whereas hermeneutical method was beneficial for discovering these notions in the corpus of texts as a whole. Results. Though exploring the texts, it was proved that in accordance with Aquinas the Creator is able to generate only ex nihilo, which means that nothing can precede this act: neither forms or matters, nor ideas or even natural laws. What God gives to the creatures though the process is the act of being which is distant from the essence in creatures but equal with essence in God himself. The matter becomes a reason of individuation, whereas the form refers to the species. Still, the God creates the souls as forms directly without any inbetweener involved, whereas the different agents are engaged in the process of creation forms. Originality. Thus, it is demonstrated in the article the ways Aquinas is able to solve the problem connected with different types of generation, which is useful in making ancient philosophy accompany Christianity. Moreover, the main metaphysical axioms are described in the article: the axiom of simplicity and axiom of perfection. Both become a basis of Thomistic philosophy, specifically from the perspective of generation.