The Canon of Medicine

...pertains to it, and it could be admitted in a certain way, according to Avicenna, that the power of creating could even be communicated to a creature, and that one creature could produce another, although not principally, but in an instrumental way by the virtue of the First. However, this opinion is not held by Catholics, nor does it have the strength to posit that a creature can create. John of Damascus, a subtle investigator of divine things, in his book De Fide Orthodoxa On the Orthodox Faith, book 2, chapter 4, attacks those who say that angels are creators of any thing. For he says they are mouths of the devil, and indeed his offspring. Since they are creatures, they are not creators. God is the only maker, provider, and sustainer of all; He is the only uncreated one, who is celebrated with hymns and glorified in the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

Indeed, the most holy interpreters of Holy Scripture use, among other things, this argument to show that the Holy Spirit is God: that He has the power of creating, as it says in Psalm 104, "Send forth your spirit and they shall be created, and you will renew the face of the earth." But that reasoning would have no weight and would have no moment if a creature had the power of creating things. Therefore, it is rightly collected by consequence that if something is a creature, it cannot have the power of creating, neither primarily nor ministerially and received from another. For a creature, defined by its own limits and determined boundaries, is not capable of infinite virtue, such that it might produce anything out of nothing. Consequently, those who think a creature can exercise the ministry of creating, committed to it by divine authority, along with Avicenna and the Platonists who assert that angels are creators, are refuted and condemned for error by Damascenus John of Damascus.

Regarding that which Damascenus investigates—which creatures were first made by God, whether spiritual or corporeal—one must rather stand by the opinion of the most holy Gregory of Nazianzus: namely, that angelic spirits were made first of all. In the second place, corporeal creatures, arranged by God in an interval of five days. In the third place, man, as a medium between both extremes. For the spirit is a more excellent nature, and spirit and body are more excellent; and the spiritual and celestial hosts were to be designated for the government and moderation of corporeal things. Therefore, it was fitting that angels and corporeal things be brought into being first, which Scripture also seems to sufficiently intimate in expressing the creation of things by first naming heaven, then earth—by the name of heaven, signifying the angels and super-celestial spirits, and likewise celestial bodies. By the name of earth, designating the elements and the things composed of them.

And as the most holy, most sacred, and most eloquent of God, Dionysius the Areopagite an influential early Christian theologian, the apostle of the Gauls, says: Every divine discourse—that is, Holy Scripture—named nine celestial substances, which this divine and consummate priest divided into three-fold orders. And he says the first is that which is handed down as being always around God, and joined to Him proximately and immediately; this is the Seraphim, who have seven wings, and the multi-eyed Cherubim, and the holy Thrones. The second, however, is that which is of Dominations, Virtues, and Powers. The third, and established at the end, is that which is of Principalities, Archangels, and Angels.

Add to this that very many who discuss celestial spirits more exactly posit that one angel differs from any other, whether of the same or different order, by a substantial species, and in each species of angels, they differ from one another only by number. They conjecture this most strongly because a numerical multitude of them is observed, which are of the same species, mostly depending on the dissection of matter and division into parts of the same ratio. Hence, those admitting this kind of division of parts by reason of joined dimension have innumerable individuals, as earth is divisible into infinite particles, and water into drops, of which each one retains the name of the whole. But those that receive less of this kind of division of matter and quantity into parts of the same denomination as the whole have a smaller multitude of individuals and approach more toward unity. As, by ascending through certain grades of things from elements to man, it is found that man has unity of species and in his own species, many whole and integral individuals. Wherefore, an angel, far surpassing man in dignity and excellence, will depart more from multitude, and man will approach more properly to unity, just as man slips less toward multitude and gathers himself more to unity than other animals lacking reason. Therefore, an angel will not have in one species many individuals of the same nature, as man does, but only one. Otherwise, the angelic nature would not carry greater unities before itself than the human, which is repugnant to the order of things. Yet those things which are diverse in species differ among themselves according to nature, and one of them is more worthy in substance, the other more imperfect. Therefore, all angelic spirits are unequal among themselves, not only according to qualities, but also in substance, and no two are of the same perfection and grade. However, let these things be understood so that we do not disapprove the opposite side in this most difficult matter, which transcends human investigation and cannot be known entirely unless the spirit of God reveals it.

On the error of Avicenna and others who say all miracles happen naturally. The fourth error.

A decorative woodcut initial F displays floral motifs. There have been some who were in a way envious of divine glory, but too addicted to their own glory; among them is Avicenna, who have tried to find in the nature of things the causes of all miracles, even those which God shows for our benefit. For they say that when our imagination is strong, the powers of the soul obey it, such that it is perfected by digesting nourishment—which they say is often done, so that some, from the imagination of epilepsy, have escaped being epileptic. They say that not only the body joined to the imagining soul obeys the imagination—which we also concede—but also external matter, which we deny. Yet they do not say this is common to all souls, but that it is the singular privilege of some, which they think are more excellent and divine than others, such as they wish prophets and heroes, or semi-gods, to be. Hence, Avicenna, in the sixth book of his Naturalia Natural Philosophy, part 4, chapter 4, and in what he presupposes in the tenth book of the Metaphysics, says: The soul in its nature is noble and separated from the passions of the body; it is of the substance of the principles that clothe matters with forms—that is, which induce forms into matter where it is subjected, through the will...