There's no such thing as a "natura pura"
all essential & final potencies are, in principle, divine
The term "nature" only successfully refers to realities that are "essentially" divine. There's no such thing as a "natura pura."
There could be a "natura nada," but it could not successfully refer to created realities, because that's what "natures" are --- donative, participable divine realities, without which nihilism obtains, existentially, and nominalism operates, essentially.
I've often wondered how a cosmogony would work, if there was such a reality as an uncreated, prevenient, co-eternal chaos - a "pure" chaos, if you will. Such an abyss would not entail any full-fledged Manichean dualism, precisely because, as a formless void, it would lack essences, natures, forms, etc
A creatio ex profundis would trans-form such a tehom by gifting it the novel potencies of both primary & secondary natures. Creatures would then reduce these essential & final potencies via their existential & formal acts.
Creatures, both the less & the more indetermined, i.e. relatively free, would co-creatively reduce such final potencies via dynamical formal acts (tropoi) as proper to their primary natures (logoi).
The logoi (quidditative whatnesses) & tropoi (thatnesses, whonesses & hownesses) of all creatures will manifest shadows, vestiges & images of their Creator. This is because both their primary & secondary natures, as donative realities, have been gifted, ex Deo, as relative perfections of the Absolute to each particular manifestation of the Universal Presence, every hypostatic identity being thus mutually constituted.
There can be no question, then, of whether any creature will manifest God. It's only to be determined how creatures will manifest God, tropically, proportionate to its given logoi, as a shadow, vestige or image of God, hence in ways that are variously and, more vs less, determined or indetermined.
Images of God can dynamically become likenesses of God, co-creatively. This is to say that they can partly self-determine their secondary natures via theosis, volitionally choosing how they will manifest God, although otherwise determined, quidditatively, per their primary natures.
This vision of the creaturely cosmogonal dance is thus a two-step.
First, in addition to the efficient acts that would reduce material potencies (as they would even in a nihilistic, materialist monism of infinitely regressing contingencies), we would also recognize the existential & formal acts that will reduce the essential & final potencies of our primary (logoi) & secondary (tropoi) natures.
Second, we would recognize that all logoi & tropoi, all essential & final potencies, are, in principle, divine.
Hence, even if one admits a divine fabricative, creation ex materia into one's cosmogony, still, one could not coherently refer to even such a thoroughgoingly contingent, tehomic milieu (e.g. of infinitely regressing, materio-energetic efficient causes) as a natura pura, because the concept entails no natures, whatsoever, primary or secondary, essential or final, logoic or tropic, hence no natural acts, either, that would reduce such potencies, existentially or formally.
So, while I could conceive of a natura nada, abstracting an uncreated tehom, which is incipiently receptive to divine fabrications, any references to "nature" per se, necessarily & in principle, will implicate the divine generations of a divine generative, creatio ex Deo.
This is to affirm that even a fabricative-generative creation dynamic involving a co-eternal, uncreated formless void, a tehomic deep, a tohu wa bohu or profundis, etc, will be inherently exnihilating vis a vis natures, essences, forms, etc, none of which exist apart from essential & formal potencies, all of which are necessarily divine.
We might coherently refer to such a reality as a natura nada, which would be constituted by an infinite regression of contingencies, i.e. efficient acts that reduce material causes. That conception, natura nada, would refer to a thoroughgoing nihilistic & nominalistic materialist monism, which admits of neither essential & final potencies nor, respectively, of their reductive existential & formal acts. It could, alternatively, refer to a tehomic, formless void that's incipiently receptive to telic dynamics.
The point is that, the moment we refer to any nature, essence or finality, or refer to any existential or formal acts, which reduce such potencies, we will, unavoidably, implicate the divine, the Ens Necessarium.
That's why materialist cosmogonies eschew existential & formal causations and deny essential & final causes. All such potencies refer, naturally & essentially, to divine realities.
Existentially & essentially, then -
To be created is to be natural.
To be natural is to be divine.
Notes re a Putative Natura Nada
In ergo-dynamic terms, mere chaotic materio-energetics would do no eternal works & only ever would produce such entities & regularities as would constitute mere ephemeralities by reducing material impotencies to efficient acts. Divine energeia would introduce eternal potencies ex Deo, which, vis a vis the formless void, in & of itself, would be de novo. Divine essential, material & final potencies would thereby be reducible by both energetic (physical premotion) & synergetic acts that are - not merely existential, efficient & formal, but - divinely & eternally, so. While a dualistic account, again, it involves no full-fledged Manichean realities.
Notes re The Existential, Epistemic & Ontic Emptinesses of the Natura Nada
These categories comprise a vague heuristic & not a rigorous metaphysic. An unmitigated nihilism would involve a seamless garment of ontic nominalism, subjective idealism, axiological voluntarism, moral relativism & existential fideism, precisely because it lacks eternalities like natures, forms & essences. It could refer to only a Natura Nada, not "Pura," all positive references to "Nature" being intrinsically divine, and only otherwise nuanced as relative vs Absolute, particular vs Universal, finite vs Infinite, etc.
no rationalistic appeals will definitively refute fideism, existentially, vis a vis BEING
no intellectualistic speculation will logically overcome voluntarism, evaluatively, vis a vis BEAUTY
no naïve realism will convincingly defeat subjective idealism, interpretively, vis a vis FREEDOM
no absolutistic insistence will compellingly obviate relativism, normatively, vis a vis GOODNESS
no essentialistic framing will finally foreclose nominalism, descriptively, vis a vis TRUTH
no gnostic sophistry will finally refute nihilism, contemplatively, vis a vis UNITY
to lust (for life) is the means or potency of beauty (vs an evaluative voluntarism) reducible & evidenced by the end or act of living in unitary being (vs any existential fideism); my memory ... give me only your love
to liberate is the means or potency of goodness (vs a normative relativism) reducible & evidenced by the end or act of loving in freedom (vs a subjective idealism); take, Lord, receive all my
liberty ... my entire will
to let go is the means or potency of truth (vs a descriptive nominalism) reducible & evidenced by the end or acts of laughing & singing (together) in unitive being (vs contemplative nihilism); understanding ... and you grace, that's enough for me
your love & your grace are enough for me
there may be other means than beauty, goodness & truth, such as the essence-less, formless, chaotic materio-energetic ephemeralities of the tehomic, coeternal, prevenient chaos; hence, proceeding w/o
regard to eternal transcendentals, essences, forms, means & ends and producing parasitic existences, which require purging to realize original beatitude & pursue secondary beatitude
unitary - existential fideism
beautiful - evaluative voluntarism
liberative - subjective idealism
good - normative relativism
unitive - contemplative nihilism
true - descriptive nominalism
A Cosmotheandric Heuristic of the true, beautiful, good, unitive, unitary & liberative
transcendentals & imperatives, potencies & acts
The Cosmotheandric Heuristic, above, which is used implicitly throughout this monograph, below, presupposes that all potencies reducible by free human acts are divine (over against any natura pura conceptions).
All human reductions of divine potencies involve integrally related acts (existential, efficient & formal), which reduce potencies (essential, material & final) as are ordered beyond our epistemic-ontic horizons to the transcendental imperatives of beauty, goodness & truth.
A certain convertibility of all of these various aspects will present due to the irreducibly triadic & integral nature of all human acts. Hence, this heuristic aspires only to vague phenomenological appropriations & not to rigorous ontological definitions.
Existential (logoic) acts of thatness reduce the essential potencies of the whatnesses of unitary being, which we recognize as manifestations of the Beautiful. The imperatives are "to be" and to be reasonable, i.e. properly exhibit & evaluate the beautiful.
Efficient (volitional) acts of whoness reduce the material potencies of liberative being, which we recognize (only through authentic freedom) as manifestations of the Good. The imperatives are to be intelligent & responsible, i.e. properly interpret & norm the goodness.
Formal (tropic) acts of howness reduce the final potencies of unitive becoming, which we recognize as manifestations of the True & realize via authenticity as our true selves (mutually constituted). The imperatives are to be attentive & aware and in love, i.e. properly contemplate & describe the truth.
We can refuse to act with proper regard to divine potencies regarding who, that, what, when, where, how much & why, i.e. in a disordered, inordinate or disproportionate manner, e.g. placing lesser over higher goods. Such acts & effects will exist only parasitically & ephemerally.
We can also assent, or, minimalistically, not so refuse; in both cases, though variously, we cooperate with grace and thereby generate eternally abiding acts & effects.
Our authentic freedom refers, then, to - not whether, but - how we will eternally manifest Christ.