Wherefore,
without stopping with them, we must go up higher in order to find
out a first, teeming, and most powerful cause, that is able to
bestow on my soul the good will she has not.
SECT. LXV. As a Superior Being is the Cause of All the
Modifications of Creatures, so it is Impossible for Man's Will to
Will Good by Itself or of its own Accord.
Let us still add another reflection. That First Being is the cause
of all the modifications of His creatures. The operation follows
the Being, as the philosophers are used to speak. A being that is
dependent in the essence of his being cannot but be dependent in all
his operations, for the accessory follows the principal. Therefore,
the Author of the essence of the being is also the Author of all the
modifications or modes of being of creatures. Thus God is the real
and immediate cause of all the configurations, combinations, and
motions of all the bodies of the universe. It is by means or upon
occasion of a body He has set in motion that He moves another. It
is He who created everything and who does everything in His
creatures or works. Now, volition is the modification of the will
or willing faculty of the soul, just as motion is the modification
of bodies. Shall we affirm that God is the real, immediate, and
total cause of the motion of all bodies, and that He is not equally
the real and immediate cause of the good-will of men's wills? Will
this modification, the most excellent of all, be the only one not
made by God in His own work, and which the work bestows on itself
independently? Who can entertain such a thought? Therefore my
good-will which I had not yesterday and which I have to-day is not a
thing I bestow upon myself, but must come from Him who gave me both
the will and the being.
Pages:
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114