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1
- Moreover, we have already stated, and we shall repeat it
later, that outside God there is nothing at all, and that he is
an Immanent Cause. Now, passivity, whenever the agent
and the patient are different entities, is a palpable imperfec-
tion, because the patient must necessarily be dependent on
that which has caused the passivity from outside; it has,
therefore, no place in God, who is perfect. Furthermore,
of such an agent who acts in himself it can never be said
that he has the imperfection of a patient, because he is not
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- affected by another; such, for instance, is the case with the
understanding, which, as the philosophers also assert, is the
cause of its ideas, since, however, it is an immanent cause,
what right has one to say that it is imperfect, howsoever
frequently it is affected by itself? ‡ Lastly, since substance
is [the cause] and the origin of all its modes, it may with
far greater right be called an agent than a patient. And
with these remarks we consider all adequately answered.
It is further objected, that there must necessarily be a
first cause which sets body in motion, because when at rest
20
- it is impossible for it to set itself in motion. And since it
is clearly manifest that rest and motion exist in Nature,
these must, they think, necessarily result from an external
cause. But it is easy for us to reply to this ; for we concede
that, if body were a thing existing through itself, and had no
other attributes than length, breadth, and depth, then, if it
really rested there would be in it no cause whereby to begin
to move itself; but we have already stated before that
Nature is a being of which all attributes are predicated, and
this being so, it can be lacking in nothing wherewith to
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- produce all that there is to be produced.
Having so far discussed what God is, we shall say but
a word, as it were, about his attributes: that those which
are known to us consist of two only, namely, Thought and
‡ B : And although the understanding, as the philosophers say,
is a cause of its ideas, yet, since it is an immanent cause, &c.
