ng "of a being"; for
it is called a being, because something is by it. Yet so far as their
mode of existence is concerned, they are not entirely reduced to
nothingness; not that any part of them survives, but that they remain
in the potentiality of the matter, or of the subject.
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QUESTION 105

OF THE CHANGE OF CREATURES BY GOD
(In Eight Articles)

We now consider the second effect of the Divine government, i.e. the
change of creatures; and first, the change of creatures by God;
secondly, the change of one creature by another.

Under the first head there are eight points of inquiry:

(1) Whether God can move immediately the matter to the form?

(2) Whether He can immediately move a body?

(3) Whether He can move the intellect?

(4) Whether He can move the will?

(5) Whether God works in every worker?

(6) Whether He can do anything outside the order imposed on things?

(7) Whether all that God does is miraculous?

(8) Of the diversity of miracles.
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FIRST ARTICLE [I, Q. 105, Art. 1]

Whether God Can Move the Matter Immediately to the Form?

Objection 1: It would seem that God cannot move the matter immediately
to receive the form. For as the Philosopher proves (Metaph. vii, Did.
vi, 8), nothing can bring a form into any particular matter, except
that form which is in matter; because, like begets like. But God is
not a form in matter. Therefore He cannot cause a form in matter.

Obj. 2: Further, any agent inclined to several effects will produce
none of them, unless it is determined to a particular one by some
other cause; for, as the Philosopher says (De Anima iii, 11), a
general assertion does not move the mind, except by means of some
particular apprehension. But the Divine power is the universal cause
of all things. Therefore it cannot produce any particular form,
except by means of a particular agent.

Obj. 3: As universal being depends on the first universal cause, so
determinate being depends on determinate particular causes; as we
have seen above (Q. 104, A. 2). But the determinate being of a
particular thing is from its own form. Therefore the forms of things
are produced by God, only by means of particular causes.

_On the contrary,_ It is written (Gen. 2:7): "God formed man of the
slime of the earth."

_I answer that,_ God can move matter immediately to form; because
whatever is in passive potentiality can be reduced to act by the
active