AND THE OCCULT SCIENCES.

...and yet none of these beings in particular would be infinite. This is because, when the perfection of one cannot be the perfection of another, every being would be found lacking; that is, each would lack the specific perfections possessed by the others. Therefore, we may add that all these supposed beings would either be opposite, independent, and all supreme—which is impossible—or they would all be subject to one or another of them—which is absurd. From this, it follows that there is only one God, who is singular in His existence, incapable of being multiplied, and who is the primary and universal cause of all things.

The great number, or rather the infinity, of perfections which we understand to be in the first cause is not contradictory original: "repugnant" to the Trinity, because the Trinity does not divide God's being. These perfections are all one and the same thing, even though we give them different names and consider them through various concepts original: "ideas" that we are forced to refine. Without that unity, God would necessarily be a composition of parts. Those parts would be the materials of the whole compound and would have to exist before the compound itself; therefore, they could not be the ingredients of that composition without something else intervening. Such parts could also be divided and separated; so that, by the dissolution of the parts, the compound would cease to exist. This is plainly inconsistent with the concept we have of God, who is simple In philosophy, "simple" means not made of parts. in His nature, independent in His will, and in every way incorruptible.

The first cause is not only unique and without equal in its essence, but also the sole actor, without any partner, in the action by which this world was produced. For this reason, the action is called creation, which assumes that all things were made out of mere nothing by the power of God alone, without the help of any other being acting as either an agent or a material original: "subject".

The world, having been produced by this first cause, remains subject to His will and pleasure. In the same way it was produced by the sole act of this first cause, it is also preserved in that same state by the sole influence of the same cause. Just as He did not require any help in the creation of the universe, He does not stand in need of any assistance in the preservation original: "conservation" of it.

If the first cause was free in the creation of the world, it follows that all things were made by the direction of reason and understanding, and consequently according to a certain idea and rule. Since the first cause operates in an independent manner, it could not have found the blueprint original: "type" of its production anywhere else but within itself; nor could it act by a rule distinct from its own being. So, in truth, God is not only the first cause but also the exemplary cause exemplary cause: the model or pattern after which something is made of all things. For the same reason, it may be said that the first cause, which is God, is the final cause final cause: the ultimate purpose or goal for which something exists of all things. For when He, as an intelligent and free being, produced this world, He proposed to Himself an end answerable to His dignity—that is, to Himself and His own proper glory. So that the first cause is necessarily the...