Aquinas: Nothing Exists, IN Itself

"For Aquinas, one cannot recognize the truth of things merely by observing features of the natural (albeit created order 'without necessarily recognizing it as created' (TA, 23, emphasis added). 'Were one to attempt to comprehend a finite reality not as created, that is to say, not in relation to God, then no truth for Aquinas could ensue, since finite realities are of themselves nothing and only what is can be true' (TA, 23; cf. 33-34). So once again the ontology of participation undergirds this account: Things are not anything 'in themselves'; therefore, they cannot be understood 'in themselves but only by reference to that from which they are suspended - their Creator (TA, 22). As a result, no secular account of things could possibly be true."

James K.A. Smith, Introducing Radical Orthodoxy, p. 160