“God’s Creative Act = God” & Contingency

Question #24: How does Catholic theology address the concern that “God’s creative act = God Himself” implies a metaphysical necessity of creation, given the Church’s constant teaching on the free and contingent nature of the world (DS 3025)?

A perennial concern in Catholic theology is that if God’s creative act is identical to God’s very being, then creation might appear as necessary as God Himself–contradicting the Church’s persistent teaching that the world is freely willed and thus contingent (DS 3025). Catholic tradition, however, has long articulated distinctions that prevent any “metaphysical necessity” of creation:

1. Distinction Between God’s Act in se and Its Created Effect

When we say “God’s creative act = God Himself,” we are speaking of God’s internal reality, where no composition or division exists. Because God is actus purus (pure act), His will and essence are wholly one–there is no separate “piece” called “creative act” that stands alongside His essence. This unity does not mean creation must also exist necessarily. Rather, it means that inside God, there is no additional “component” tacked on to bring about the universe. What God eternally wills, He does so from His infinite freedom, not from any obligation or compulsion.

2. No Automatic Overflow or Emanation

Certain philosophical systems (e.g., Neoplatonism) have posited that God “overflows” by necessity into creation. In contrast, Catholic theology (CCC 296–298, DS 3025) insists there is no necessity forcing God’s hand. God “could have” chosen otherwise or refrained from creating at all without any contradiction arising within His essence. Thus, while God’s act is fully in Him and identical to His essence, the content of that act (that there is a universe at all, and of a particular nature) remains a free, contingent decision.

3. God’s Sovereign Freedom

The key insight is that God’s “freedom” does not require unrealized potency waiting to be activated. Instead, it arises from God’s self-sufficiency: because He has no need or lack, He is perfectly at liberty to will this creation, a different creation, or no creation at all. His single, simple act includes whichever choice He freely decides. Consequently, the “necessity” pertains only to God’s own existence–He cannot not be–while which world is willed is contingent on His unconstrained decree.

4. Unchanging Yet Not Forced

There is no point at which God “decides” in a temporal sense; rather, from all eternity God simply (and freely) wills. The fact that He does not undergo change or deliberate in time does not translate into necessity. It indicates that His free decree is one eternal act, rooted in His unchanging essence. Creation remains gratuitous: God stands in need of nothing and thus gains nothing essential by creating. Hence, the Church’s teaching on creation’s contingency stands: the world exists solely because God freely willed it.

In short, Catholic theology reconciles “God’s creative act = God Himself” with creation’s contingency by distinguishing the absolute necessity of God’s own being from the free, unnecessitated determination regarding the universe. This ensures that while God’s act and essence are inseparably one, the effect–creation–stays contingent and never forced by God’s nature.


(see #8, #9)