God’s Necessary Being & Free Act

Question #21: How can Catholic thought distinguish between God’s absolutely necessary existence (Lateran IV, DS 800) and the contingent nature of His creative acts, ensuring the world is not necessitated by His essence?

Catholic thought draws a careful line between the necessary existence of God (as taught in Lateran IV, DS 800) and the contingent nature of creation (see CCC 296–298). The fundamental issue is that while God’s being is absolutely necessary–He cannot not be–nothing compels Him to create. To reconcile these two truths, the Church employs several distinctions:

1. Necessary Existence vs. Free Will

Lateran IV (DS 800) affirms that God, as ipsum esse subsistens (the sheer act of being), exists necessarily. There is no scenario where God “could fail” to be. This intrinsic necessity concerns who God is in Himself–His nature cannot be undone or suspended. However, God’s will to create is not dictated by that necessity. Because God’s essence is already infinitely perfect, He gains nothing from creation and lacks no good. Thus, no lack or force pushes Him to create; He is free to will or not to will a world.

2. Distinguishing God’s Internal Act from the Created Effect

Catholic theologians (especially in the Thomistic tradition) separate the eternal, unchanging act of God’s will (which is internally necessary to God insofar as there is no “part” of God that can be added or subtracted) from the content of that will (the effect in creation). The first is “necessary” only in the sense that God’s will is inseparable from His simple essence. Yet what that will includes–namely, whether there is a world, or this kind of world, or none–is not forced by His essence. As a result, creation remains purely contingent, chosen entirely by God’s free will.

3. No Composition or “Added” Element

God’s simplicity means He does not “add on” a creative act separate from His essence, but that does not equate to “God must create.” Rather, it signifies that God’s unchanging act of being includes His free determination, set eternally, to bring forth creation. Were God to have determined something different–say, not to create–that, too, would be contained within His one, simple act. Hence, the necessity of God’s existence does not carry over to the existence of the world.

4. A Gratuitous Gift

Because God is not compelled internally or externally, creation remains a gratuitous gift, not a logical or metaphysical necessity. Scripture and Tradition (CCC 296–298) emphasize that God’s creative love is wholly free. His absolute independence (Lateran IV) makes it more rather than less plausible that creation is contingent: God was not “filling a gap” in Himself but generously bestowing existence on that which need not have been.

In this way, Catholic thought upholds the absolute necessity of God’s being while maintaining that the world is not necessitated by His essence, preserving both divine simplicity and the contingency of creation.


(see #7, #22)