Breviloquium

With these things concerning the Trinity of God briefly understood beforehand, some things must be said about the creation of the world. Concerning it, these points are to be held in summary: namely, that the whole structure of the world was brought into being in time and from nothing by one first, sole, and highest principle; whose power, although immense, nevertheless disposed all things with a determinate weight, number, and measure.¹ — These things are to be understood generally concerning the production of things, from which truth is gathered and error rejected. For by the fact that it is said to be in time, the error of those who posit an eternal world is excluded. By the fact that it is said to be from nothing, the error of those who posit eternity concerning the material principle is excluded. By the fact that it is said to be from one principle, the error of the Manichaeans, who posit a plurality of principles, is excluded. By the fact that it is said to be by a sole and highest principle, the error of those who posit that God produced lower creatures through the ministry of intelligences is excluded. But by the addition of “with a determinate weight, number, and measure,” it is shown that the creature is the effect of the creating Trinity under a threefold kind of causality: efficient, from which the creature has unity, mode, and measure; exemplar, from which it has truth, species, and number; final, from which it has goodness, order, and weight. These are indeed found in all creatures as a vestige of the Creator, whether corporeal, spiritual, or composed of both.

The reason for understanding the foregoing is this: in order that there be perfect order and stability in things, all must be reduced to one principle, which must be first, so that it may give stability to the rest; and most perfect, so that it may give completion to all the rest.² Since therefore the first principle, in which stability resides, can be only one alone, if it produces the world, since it cannot produce it from itself, it must produce it from nothing. And because production from nothing posits being after non-being on the part of the product, and immensity in the producing power on the part of the principle, since this belongs to God alone, it is necessary that the creation of the world be produced in time by that immense power itself, acting through itself and immediately.

Again, since the most perfect principle, from which the perfection of all things flows, must act from itself, according to itself, and for itself — because in acting it needs nothing outside itself — it must have, with respect to every creature, the intention of a threefold cause, namely, efficient, exemplar, and final; it is also necessary that every creature be related to the first cause according to this threefold relation. For every creature is brought into being by the efficient cause, conformed to the exemplar, and ordered to the end; and by this it is one, true, and good; modified, beautiful, and ordered; measured, distinct, and weighed; for weight is an ordering inclination.³ — And these things have been said generally about every creature, whether corporeal, incorporeal, or composed of both, as human nature is.