Reconciling Thomistic Freedom & No Potential

Question #3. How can the classical (Thomistic) understanding of God’s freedom, as endorsed by major Catholic theologians (e.g., Aquinas in Summa Theologiae I.19), be reconciled with the claim in Catholic doctrine that God has no unactualized potential?

Within a Catholic framework that affirms God’s sovereignty (cf. CCC 303), if God chooses not to create, does this imply that God “could have” created and thus had some unrealized potential, seeming to contradict divine simplicity?

A thoroughly Catholic perspective understands that God’s sovereignty (CCC 303) signifies He is the ultimate ruler over all reality–His providence extends to every event. Yet this sovereignty also includes the freedom not to create at all, which appears to suggest that God “could have” exercised a different option. The concern is whether this “could have” posits an unrealized potential in God, seemingly undermining divine simplicity.

First, Catholic tradition consistently teaches that God, being actus purus, lacks all unactualized potency within His essence. He is not composed of parts, nor does He move from “unrealized” to “realized” states. Instead, Catholic theology distinguishes between God’s internal being and the contingent character of creation. From the divine side, there is no “change” or “transition” if God wills a world or does not will one. Rather, the difference lies in the order of created reality: the world either exists or it does not, depending solely on God’s eternal, free decision.

Second, we must recall that God’s freedom is not bound by any deficiency or unmet need. Since He is fully actual, He does not gain or lose anything by creating. Therefore, God’s freedom to create or not create does not arise from some passive potency that He could “activate.” It is, rather, an eternal freedom flowing from the simplicity of His will–entirely self-determined and wholly inexhaustible. Thus, the “could have” refers to the non-necessity of the world: God was not obliged to create. But this does not locate a “latent capacity” in God waiting to be triggered.

Third, classical Catholic theologians (e.g., St. Thomas Aquinas) point out that God’s will is co-eternal with His essence. If He freely wills to create, that act is an eternal act: there was no moment in which He deliberated or shifted from “not creating” to “creating.” Instead, from all eternity, He knows and wills, in one simple act, the reality of this contingent universe. Because His creative volition does not introduce any new “state” in Him, it does not conflict with divine simplicity.

Finally, the fact that creation is contingent (i.e., not a necessity) indicates only that God is not constrained to bring a world into being. It does not demand a “reserve of potency” inside God. Rather, it underlines that He alone is the ground of all possibility. As a result, the “could have” is an expression about the contingency of the world–not a statement of change or potential within God. Hence, no contradiction to simplicity arises; the world’s dependence on God is total, yet God’s inner being remains utterly simple, free, and unchanging.

(see #1, #5, #22 for more)