Creation & the Supernatural Order

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Primary Texts

30 chapters

Part I, Ch. I, Art. 1: The Divine Idea of the Cosmos as the Exemplary Cause of Creation

The world as an idea in the divine mind prior to creation; Clement of Alexandria's distinction between the ideal and the really existing world.

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Part I, Ch. I, Art. 2: Creation in Its Relation to the Trinity

Creation as a common act of all three Divine Persons, yet appropriated to the Father; vestiges and images of the Trinity found in creatures.

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Part I, Ch. I, Art. 3: Creation as a Free Divine Act

God was free to create or not create, and free to create this world rather than another, but not free to create an evil world; refutation of Leibnizian Optimism and Schopenhauer's Pessimism.

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Part I, Ch. I, Art. 4: Creation in Time

The world had a true beginning in time as an article of faith, and whether an eternal creation is even conceivable, per Aquinas and Scotus against Bonaventure.

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Part I, Ch. I, Art. 5: The Incommunicability of God's Creative Power

No creature, not even an angel, and not even as an instrument, can ever create; three theses building the case.

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Part I, Ch. II, §1: Divine Preservation

Preservation as a kind of continued creation, and why the universe would lapse back into nothingness without God's sustaining action.

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Part I, Ch. II, §2: Divine Co-operation, or Concurrence

God's concurrence with secondary causes, and the full Molinism versus Thomism debate over concursus simultaneus and physical premotion.

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Part I, Ch. III, §1: The Final Cause or Object of Creation

God's motive for creating, which was pure benevolence, and the world's purpose, which is God's own glory and then the happiness of rational creatures.

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Part I, Ch. III, §2: Divine Providence

Providence defined and defended against Deism, with a short history of English and German Deism collapsing into Rationalism.

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Part II, Ch. I, §1: First and Second Creation

The distinction between creatio prima, creation from nothing, and creatio secunda, the forming of that primal matter into the ordered cosmos.

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Part II, Ch. I, §2: The Hexaemeron in Its Relation to Science and Exegesis

The six days of Genesis weighed against geology and astronomy, with the full catalogue of harmonizing theories and how far the word day can mean more than 24 hours.

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Part II, Ch. II, §1, Art. 1: The Origin of Man and the Unity of the Human Race

Adam and Eve directly created by God against Darwinism and Mivart, and monogenism defended against Pre-Adamism and Co-Adamism.

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Part II, Ch. II, §1, Art. 2: The Essential Constituents of Man

Man as body and one soul only, against Gnostic, Manichaean, Apollinarian, and Guntherian trichotomy, with the soul as the body's substantial form per the Council of Vienne.

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Part II, Ch. II, §1, Art. 3: The Immortality of the Human Soul

The natural immortality of the soul against the Hypnopsychites, Pomponazzi, and Averroes, with the Old and New Testament case laid out in full.

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Part II, Ch. II, §1, Art. 4: The Origin of the Soul

Pre-existentism and Traducianism rejected, and Creationism established through Leo the Great, the rediscovered Anastasius II letter, and the Fifth Lateran Council.

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Part II, Ch. II, §2, Art. 1: Nature and the Supernatural

Defining Nature and the Supernatural as technical terms, the potentia obedientialis, and what is strictly supernatural versus merely preternatural.

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Part II, Ch. II, §2, Art. 2: Man's Supernatural Endowment in Paradise

Adam's sanctifying grace, freedom from concupiscence, bodily immortality, infused knowledge, and impassibility, and how they formed one organic state of original justice.

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Part II, Ch. II, §2, Art. 3: Heresies Versus the Church's Teaching on Original Justice

Pelagianism, Protestantism, and Jansenism weighed against the Church's teaching on the state of our first parents in Paradise.

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Part II, Ch. II, §2, Art. 4: The Different States of Man

Historic versus hypothetical states of human nature, and a defense of the possibility of a pure nature state against Baius.

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Part II, Ch. II, §3, Art. 1: The Sin of Adam Considered as the First Sin

The historicity of the Fall of our first parents, and the immediate punishments it brought upon Adam and Eve themselves.

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Part II, Ch. II, §3, Art. 2: The Sin of Adam Considered as Original Sin

Original sin as it affects all of Adam's descendants, the Tridentine decree examined canon by canon, and the full exegesis of Romans V.

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Part II, Ch. II, §3, Art. 3: The Nature of Original Sin

What original sin formally is, weighing four rival theories and landing on privation of grace rooted in Adam's headship of the race.

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Part II, Ch. II, §3, Art. 4: How Original Sin Is Transmitted

How original sin passes from Adam to his descendants by natural generation, and the precise role concupiscence plays in that transmission.

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Part II, Ch. II, §3, Art. 5: The Penalties of Original Sin

The four categories of penalty for original sin, the dogma of free will against Luther and Jansenius, the wounds of nature, and the fate of unbaptized infants.

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Part II, Ch. III, §1, Art. 1: Existence and Nature of the Angels

That angels exist and are pure spirits, per the Fourth Lateran Council and Vatican I, along with their intellect, will, and power.

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Part II, Ch. III, §1, Art. 2: Number and Hierarchy of the Angels

How many angels there are, and the nine choirs grouped into three hierarchies following the Pseudo-Dionysius.

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Part II, Ch. III, §2, Art. 1: The Supernatural Endowment of the Angels

Angels elevated to sanctifying grace at the moment of their creation, and the period of probation they underwent.

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Part II, Ch. III, §2, Art. 2: The Angels in Their Relation to Men, or the Guardian Angels

Four theses on Guardian Angels: general guardianship over mankind, personal angels from Baptism, angels for pagans and sinners too, and tutelary angels of nations.

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Part II, Ch. III, §3, Art. 1: The Fallen Angels or Demons

The fall of Satan and the demons from grace, the nature of their sin, and the finality of their punishment.

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Part II, Ch. III, §3, Art. 2: The Demons in Their Relation to the Human Race

The final article of the book: temptation, demoniacal possession, and black magic.

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Glenn's Tour of the Summa

76 questions

Glenn's chapter-by-chapter précis of the Summa Theologica, with links to the full Latin–English text at New Advent.

Q.44 God as First Cause of All Things Q.45 How Things Come From God Q.46 The Beginning of Creatures Q.47 The Distinction of Things Q.48 The Distinction of Good and Evil Q.49 The Cause of Evil Q.50 The Substance of the Angels Q.51 Angels and Bodies Q.52 Angels and Place Q.53 Angels and Local Movement Q.54 The Knowledge of the Angels Q.55 THe Medium of Angelic Knowledge Q.56 Angelic Knowledge of Nonmaterial Things Q.57 Angelic Knowledge of Material Things Q.58 The Mode or Manner of Angelic Knowing Q.59 The Will of Angels Q.60 Love in the Angels Q.61 The Creation of the Angels Q.62 Grace and Glory of the Angels Q.63 Sin of the Fallen Angels

Browse all 76 Tour questions for this tract →

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Magisterial Documents

Ineffabilis Deus

Pius IX · 1854

Defines as dogma that the Blessed Virgin Mary was preserved from all stain of original sin from the first instant of her conception, by a singular grace of God in view of the merits of Christ.

Dei Filius

Vatican Council I · 1870

Defines the Catholic doctrine on God the Creator, on divine revelation, on faith and reason, and on the relationship between faith and science — establishing the dogmatic foundations that all subsequent theology presupposes.

Humani Generis

Pius XII · 1950

Addresses contemporary errors concerning evolution, polygenism, the nature of dogmatic development, and the relationship between philosophy and theology — reaffirming the permanent validity of Thomistic method.

Gaudium et Spes

Vatican Council II · 1965

Vatican II's Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World: the dignity and vocation of the human person revealed in Christ, and the Church's teaching on marriage, culture, economic life, political community and peace.

Laborem Exercens

John Paul II · 1981

John Paul II's encyclical on human work, for the ninetieth anniversary of Rerum Novarum: work in its objective and subjective senses, the priority of labour over capital, the rights of workers and unions, the indirect employer, and a spirituality of work.

Evangelium Vitae

John Paul II · 1995

John Paul II's encyclical on the value and inviolability of human life, with solemn confirmations of the Church's teaching on the killing of the innocent, abortion and euthanasia, and a call to build a culture of life.

Laudato Si'

Francis · 2015

Francis's encyclical on care for our common home: the ecological crisis and its human roots in the technocratic paradigm, the Gospel of creation, integral ecology, and the call to ecological conversion.

Magnifica Humanitas

Leo XIV · 2026

Leo XIV's first encyclical, on safeguarding the human person in the time of artificial intelligence: the dignity of the person as the criterion for judging technology, the limits of AI, the rejection of transhumanism, and truth, work, freedom and peace in a culture of power.

psychology

Philosophical Foundation

Catholic Philosophy

Cosmology

The philosophy of nature underpins the doctrine of creation. Glenn's Cosmology treats matter, form, and causality.

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