ween what is now
and its previous non-existence. But if the negation includes the
preposition, then the order is denied, and the sense is, "It is made
from nothing--i.e. it is not made from anything"--as if we were to
say, "He speaks of nothing," because he does not speak of anything.
And this is verified in both ways, when it is said, that anything is
made from nothing. But in the first way this preposition "from" [ex]
implies order, as has been said in this reply. In the second sense,
it imports the material cause, which is denied.
_______________________

SECOND ARTICLE [I, Q. 45, Art. 2]

Whether God Can Create Anything?

Objection 1: It would seem that God cannot create anything, because,
according to the Philosopher (Phys. i, text 34), the ancient
philosophers considered it as a commonly received axiom that "nothing
is made from nothing." But the power of God does not extend to the
contraries of first principles; as, for instance, that God could make
the whole to be less than its part, or that affirmation and negation
are both true at the same time. Therefore God cannot make anything
from nothing, or create.

Obj. 2: Further, if to create is to make something from nothing, to
be created is to be made. But to be made is to be changed. Therefore
creation is change. But every change occurs in some subject, as
appears by the definition of movement: for movement is the act of
what is in potentiality. Therefore it is impossible for anything to
be made out of nothing by God.

Obj. 3: Further, what has been made must have at some time been
becoming. But it cannot be said that what is created, at the same
time, is becoming and has been made, because in permanent things what
is becoming, is not, and what has been made, already is: and so it
would follow that something would be, and not be, at the same time.
Therefore when anything is made, its becoming precedes its having
been made. But this is impossible, unless there is a subject in which
the becoming is sustained. Therefore it is impossible that anything
should be made from nothing.

Obj. 4: Further, infinite distance cannot be crossed. But infinite
distance exists between being and nothing. Therefore it does not
happen that something is made from nothing.

_On the contrary,_ It is said (Gen. 1:1): "In the beginning God
created heaven and earth."

_I answer that,_ Not only is it [not] impossible that anything should
be created by God, but it is necessary to s