Theologicae regulae

Everything limited by alpha and omega is either good from alpha, or is good from alpha and omega.

This descends from that rule in which it was said: The monad alone is alpha and omega, because if all things are from God as from a beginning, therefore they are from alpha, that is, from the very beginning, good by the habit of a good beginning. But note, by what is said: Everything limited by alpha and omega, is meant everything created, which is enclosed by two limits, that is, beginning and end, in act or in nature. For everything generated naturally tends toward destruction. Whence also the angelic nature is naturally dissolvable, of which Plato says: "Gods of gods, whose father and maker I am, by nature indeed dissolvable, by my will indissolvable." Whence Augustine, on Genesis, says that every creature has a morning and an evening, that is, a beginning and an end, at least by nature. And thus everything created is either good from alpha, that is, is naturally a partaker of goodness, and has this from its author: or from alpha and omega, as the rational creature, which tends toward beatitude, which is the end of all things. From the end, then, the rational creature alone is good, which not only naturally tends toward God, but also cultivates him, as a Father, by the manners of its life, and recalls him by the understanding of the mind, and seeks him, with the whole striving of charity, that it may be given to it as its reward.