“Even if you could, what in turn would be the cause of those properties? There must always be a first cause.”
To attribute the first formation of things to the innermost properties of matter would be to mistake the effect for the cause since such properties are themselves an effect that must have had a prior cause.
8.What about the idea that attributes the first formation of allthings to an accidental combination of matter, i.e. to chance?
“Another absurdity! How could anyone with any common sense believe that chance is an intelligent agent? Moreover, what is chance? Nothing.”
The harmony that governs the forces of the universe reveals certain set combinations and designs, and thus an intelligent power. To attribute the first formation of things to chance would be nonsense because chance is blind and cannot produce intelligent results. An intelligent chance would no longer be chance.
9.Where may we see in the first cause a Supreme Intelligence,superior to all other intelligences?
“You have a proverb that says, ‘The workman is known by his work.’ So, look at the work and you will find the
‘Workman’! Pride is what creates disbelief. Human pride believes in nothing above itself, and that is why people think they are so powerful. Poor beings! A mere breath from God could blow them over!”
We judge the power of an intelligence by its works. Since no human being could create what nature produces, it is obvious that the first cause must be an intelligence superior to humankind.
Whatever may be the marvels accomplished by human intelligence, such intelligence itself must have a cause; the greater the results, the greater the first cause must have been. No matter what name you give it, that intelligence is the first cause of all things.
The Attributes of the Divinity
10.Can human beings fathom God’s innermost nature?
“No, they lack the aptitude to comprehend it.”
11.Will they ever be able to fathom the mystery of the Divinity?
“When their spirits are no longer eclipsed by matter, and when they have finally purified themselves enough to be able to approach God, then they will see and comprehend God.”
The inferior nature of their faculties makes it impossible for human beings to fathom God’s innermost nature. While humanity is in its infancy, people often confuse God with God’s creatures, imputing to God their own imperfections. However, they ponder the nature of things more deeply as their moral sense develops and thus they acquire a truer – though always incomplete – idea of God that conforms more to reason.
12.Even though we cannot fathom God’s innermost nature, canwe get an idea of some of the divine perfections?
“Yes, some of them. Human beings comprehend them better only as they progressively overcome matter, but they can at least get glimpses of them through thought.”
13.When we state that God is eternal, infinite, immutable,immaterial, one, all-powerful, and supremely just and good,don’t we have a complete idea of God’s attributes?
“From your own point of view, yes, because you believe that in so stating them you therefore have named all of them. Nevertheless, you should understand that there are things that transcend the intelligence of the most intelligent person, things your language cannot define, because it is limited to your ideas and sensations. Your reason tells you that God must be perfect in those attributes to the nth degree, for if God lacked any of them or was not perfect in them to the nth degree, God would not be superior to everything else, and thus would not be God. In order to be superior to everything else, God must not be subject to any change and must not be imperfect in any way imaginable.”
God iseternal. If God had had a beginning, then either God would have had to have sprung from nothing or would have had to have been created by a being that existed
