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<!DOCTYPE html> <html lang="en"> <head> <title>CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA: Relation of God to the Universe</title><script src="https://dtyry4ejybx0.cloudfront.net/js/cmp/cleanmediacmp.js?ver=0104" async="true"></script><script defer data-domain="newadvent.org" src="https://plausible.io/js/script.js"></script><link rel="canonical" href="https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/06614a.htm"> <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1"> <meta name="description" content="Sections include essential dependence of the universe on God, divine immanence and transcendence, and possibility of the supernatural"> <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"><link rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml" title="RSS" href="http://feeds.newadvent.org/bestoftheweb?format=xml"><link rel="icon" href="../images/icon1.ico" type="image/x-icon"><link rel="shortcut icon" href="../images/icon1.ico" type="image/x-icon"><meta name="robots" content="noodp"><link type="text/css" rel="stylesheet" href="../utility/screen6.css" media="screen"></head> <body class="cathen" id="06614a.htm">  <br/> <div id="capitalcity"><table summary="Logo" cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0 width="100%"><tr valign="bottom"><td align="left"><a href="../"><img height=36 width=153 border="0" alt="New Advent" src="../images/logo.gif"></a></td><td align="right"> <form id="searchbox_000299817191393086628:ifmbhlr-8x0" action="../utility/search.htm">  <input type="hidden" name="safe" value="active"> <input type="hidden" name="cx" value="000299817191393086628:ifmbhlr-8x0"/> <input type="hidden" name="cof" value="FORID:9"/>  <label for="searchQuery" id="searchQueryLabel">Search:</label> <input id="searchQuery" name="q" type="text" size="25" aria-labelledby="searchQueryLabel"/>  <label for="submitButton" id="submitButtonLabel" class="visually-hidden">Submit Search</label> <input id="submitButton" type="submit" name="sa" value="Search" aria-labelledby="submitButtonLabel"/> </form> <table summary="Spacer" cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0><tr><td height="2"></td></tr></table> <table summary="Tabs" cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0><tr> <td bgcolor="#ffffff"></td> <td class="tab"><a class="tab_color_on_beige" href="../"> Home </a></td> <td class="tab"><a class="tab_white_on_color" href="../cathen/index.html"> Encyclopedia </a></td> <td class="tab"><a class="tab_color_on_beige" href="../summa/index.html"> Summa </a></td> <td class="tab"><a class="tab_color_on_beige" href="../fathers/index.html"> Fathers </a></td> <td class="tab"><a class="tab_color_on_beige" href="../bible/gen001.htm"> Bible </a></td> <td class="tab"><a class="tab_color_on_beige" href="../library/index.html"> Library </a></td> </tr></table> </td> </tr></table><table summary="Alphabetical index" width="100%" cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0><tr><td class="bar_white_on_color"> <a href="../cathen/a.htm"> A </a><a href="../cathen/b.htm"> B </a><a href="../cathen/c.htm"> C </a><a href="../cathen/d.htm"> D </a><a href="../cathen/e.htm"> E </a><a href="../cathen/f.htm"> F </a><a href="../cathen/g.htm"> G </a><a href="../cathen/h.htm"> H </a><a href="../cathen/i.htm"> I </a><a href="../cathen/j.htm"> J </a><a href="../cathen/k.htm"> K </a><a href="../cathen/l.htm"> L </a><a href="../cathen/m.htm"> M </a><a href="../cathen/n.htm"> N </a><a href="../cathen/o.htm"> O </a><a href="../cathen/p.htm"> P </a><a href="../cathen/q.htm"> Q </a><a href="../cathen/r.htm"> R </a><a href="../cathen/s.htm"> S </a><a href="../cathen/t.htm"> T </a><a href="../cathen/u.htm"> U </a><a href="../cathen/v.htm"> V </a><a href="../cathen/w.htm"> W </a><a href="../cathen/x.htm"> X </a><a href="../cathen/y.htm"> Y </a><a href="../cathen/z.htm"> Z </a> </td></tr></table></div> <div id="mobilecity" style="text-align: center; "><a href="../"><img height=24 width=102 border="0" alt="New Advent" src="../images/logo.gif"></a></div>  <div id="mi5"><span class="breadcrumbs"><a href="../">Home</a> > <a href="../cathen">Catholic Encyclopedia</a> > <a href="../cathen/g.htm">G</a> > Relation of God to the Universe</span></div> <div id="springfield2"> <div class='catholicadnet-728x90' id='cathen-728x90-top' style='display: flex; height: 100px; align-items: center; justify-content: center; '></div> <h1>Relation of God to the Universe</h1> <p><em><a href="https://gumroad.com/l/na2"><strong>Please help support the mission of New Advent</strong> and get the full contents of this website as an instant download. Includes the Catholic Encyclopedia, Church Fathers, Summa, Bible and more  all for only $19.99...</a></em></p> <h2 id="section1">Essential dependence of the universe on God (creation and conservation)</h2> <p>In developing the argument of the First Cause we have seen that the world is essentially dependent on <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a>, and this dependence implies in the first place that <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a> is the Creator of the world  the producer of its whole being or substance  and in the next place, supposing its production, that its continuance in being at every moment is due to His sustaining power. Creation means <em>the total production of a being out of nothing</em>, i.e. the bringing of a being into existence to replace absolute nonexistence, and the relation of Creator is the only conceivable relation in which the Infinite can stand to the finite. <a href="../cathen/11447b.htm">Pantheistic</a> theories, which would represent the varieties of being in the <a href="../cathen/15183a.htm">universe</a> as so many determinations or emanations or phases of one and the selfsame eternal reality  Substance according to <a href="../cathen/14217a.htm">Spinoza</a>, Pure Ego according to Fichte, the <a href="../cathen/01060c.htm">Absolute</a> according to Schelling, the Pure Idea or Logical Concept according to <a href="../cathen/07192a.htm">Hegel</a>  simply bristle with contradictions, and involve, as has been stated already, a denial of the distinction between the finite and the <a href="../cathen/08004a.htm">infinite</a>. And the relation of Creator to created remains the same even though the possibility of eternal creation be admitted; the Infinite must be the producer of the finite even though it be impossible to fix a time at which production may not already have taken place. For certain <a href="../cathen/08673a.htm">knowledge</a> of the fact that created being, and time itself, had a definite beginning in the past we can afford to rely on revelation, although, as already stated, <a href="../cathen/13598b.htm">science</a> suggests the same fact.</p> <div class="CMtag_300x250" style="display: flex; height: 300px; align-items: center; justify-content: center; "></div> <p>It is also clear that if the <a href="../cathen/15183a.htm">universe</a> depends on <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a> for its production, it must also depend on Him for its conservation or continuance in being; and this <a href="../cathen/15073a.htm">truth</a> will perhaps be best presented by explaining the much talked-of principle of Divine <em>immanence</em> as corrected and counterbalanced by the equally important principle of Divine <em>transcendence</em>.</p> <h2 id="section2">Divine immanence and transcendence</h2> <p>To <a href="../cathen/04679b.htm">Deists</a> is attributed the view  or at least a tendency towards the view  that <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a>, having created the <a href="../cathen/15183a.htm">universe</a>, leaves it to pursue its own course according to fixed <a href="../cathen/09053a.htm">laws</a> and ceases, so to speak, to take any further interest in, or responsibility for what may happen; and Divine immanence is urged, sometimes too strongly, in opposition to this view. <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a> is immanent, or intimately present, in the <a href="../cathen/15183a.htm">universe</a> because His power is required at every moment to sustain creatures in being and to concur with them in their activities. Conservation and concursus are so to speak, continuations of creative activity, and imply an equally intimate relation of <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a> towards creatures, or rather an equally intimate and unceasing dependence of creatures on <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a>. Whatever creatures are, they are by virtue of <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God's</a> conserving power; whatever they do, they do by virtue of <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God's</a> concursus. It is not, of course, denied that creatures are <a href="../cathen/15073a.htm">true</a> causes and produce real effects; but they are only secondary causes, their efficiency is always dependent and derived; <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a> as the First Cause is an ever active cooperator in their actions. This is <a href="../cathen/15073a.htm">true</a> even of the free acts of an intelligent creature like man; only it should be added in this case that Divine responsibility ceases at the point where <a href="../cathen/14004b.htm">sin</a> or moral <a href="../cathen/05649a.htm">evil</a> enters in. Since <a href="../cathen/14004b.htm">sin</a> as such, however, is an imperfection, no limitation is thus imposed on <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God's</a> supremacy.</p> <p>But lest insistence on Divine immanence should degenerate into <a href="../cathen/11447b.htm">Pantheism</a>  and there is a tendency in this direction on the part of many modern writers  it is important at the same time to emphasize the <a href="../cathen/15073a.htm">truth</a> of <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God's</a> transcendence, to recall, in other words, what has been stated several times already, that <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a> is one simple and <a href="../cathen/08004a.htm">infinitely</a> perfect personal Being whose nature and action in their proper character as Divine <a href="../cathen/08004a.htm">infinitely</a> transcend all possible modes of the finite, and cannot, without contradiction, be formally identified with these.</p> <h2 id="section3">Possibility of the supernatural</h2> <p>From a study of nature we have inferred the <a href="../cathen/06608b.htm">existence of God</a> and <a href="../cathen/04674a.htm">deduced</a> certain fundamental <a href="../cathen/15073a.htm">truths</a> regarding His nature and attributes, and His relation to the created <a href="../cathen/15183a.htm">universe</a>. And from these it is easy to deduce a further important <a href="../cathen/15073a.htm">truth</a>, with a brief mention of which we may fittingly conclude this section. However wonderful we may consider the <a href="../cathen/15183a.htm">universe</a> to be, we recognize that neither in its substance nor in the <a href="../cathen/09053a.htm">laws</a> by which its order is maintained, in so far as unaided reason can come to <a href="../cathen/08673a.htm">know</a> them, does it exhaust <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God's</a> <a href="../cathen/08004a.htm">infinite</a> power or perfectly reveal His nature. If then it be suggested that, to supplement what philosophy teaches of Himself and His purposes, <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a> may be willing to favour <a href="../cathen/12673b.htm">rational</a> creatures with an immediate personal revelation, in which He aids the natural powers of reason by confirming what they already <a href="../cathen/08673a.htm">know</a>, and by imparting to them much that they could not otherwise <a href="../cathen/08673a.htm">know</a>, it will be seen at once that this suggestion contains no impossibility. All that is required to realize it is that <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a> should be able to communicate directly with the created mind, and that men should be able to recognize with sufficient <a href="../cathen/03539b.htm">certainty</a> that the communication is really Divine  and that both of these conditions are capable of being fulfilled no Theist can <a href="../cathen/09324a.htm">logically</a> deny (see <a href="../cathen/13001a.htm">REVELATION</a>; <a href="../cathen/10338a.htm">MIRACLES</a>). This being so it will follow further that <a href="../cathen/08673a.htm">knowledge</a> so obtained, being guaranteed by the authority of Him who is <a href="../cathen/08004a.htm">infinite</a> Truth, is the most certain and reliable <a href="../cathen/08673a.htm">knowledge</a> we can possess.</p> <div class='catholicadnet-728x90' id='cathen-728x90-bottom' style='display: flex; height: 100px; align-items: center; justify-content: center; '></div> <div class="pub"><h2>About this page</h2><p id="apa"><strong>APA citation.</strong> <span id="apaauthor">Toner, P.</span> <span id="apayear">(1909).</span> <span id="apaarticle">Relation of God to the Universe.</span> In <span id="apawork">The Catholic Encyclopedia.</span> <span id="apapublisher">New York: Robert Appleton Company.</span> <span id="apaurl">http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/06614a.htm</span></p><p id="mla"><strong>MLA citation.</strong> <span id="mlaauthor">Toner, Patrick.</span> <span id="mlaarticle">"Relation of God to the Universe."</span> <span id="mlawork">The Catholic Encyclopedia.</span> <span id="mlavolume">Vol. 6.</span> <span id="mlapublisher">New York: Robert Appleton Company,</span> <span id="mlayear">1909.</span> <span id="mlaurl"><http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/06614a.htm>.</span></p><p id="transcription"><strong>Transcription.</strong> <span id="transcriber">This article was transcribed for New Advent by Tomas Hancil.</span> <span id="dedication"></span></p><p id="approbation"><strong>Ecclesiastical approbation.</strong> <span id="nihil"><em>Nihil Obstat.</em> September 1, 1909. Remy Lafort, Censor.</span> <span id="imprimatur"><em>Imprimatur.</em> +John M. Farley, Archbishop of New York.</span></p><p id="contactus"><strong>Contact information.</strong> The editor of New Advent is Kevin Knight. My email address is webmaster <em>at</em> newadvent.org. Regrettably, I can't reply to every letter, but I greatly appreciate your feedback — especially notifications about typographical errors and inappropriate ads.</p></div> </div> <div id="ogdenville"><table summary="Bottom bar" width="100%" cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0><tr><td class="bar_white_on_color"><center><strong>Copyright © 2023 by <a href="../utility/contactus.htm">New Advent LLC</a>. 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