Chapter 104 - The Effects of the Divine Government in Particular

All things are preserved in being by God; for preservation may be direct or indirect; direct, through support given by the preserver, or indirect, through the removal of causes of destruction. All things do not require the latter; for some, as the angels and other heavenly bodies, are indestructible; but all require direct preservation, because the effect of a cause requires to be maintained, as well as to be originated; and as every creature is the effect of God, both as to form and being, all must be directly preserved by Him.

For every creature stands in relation to God, as the air to the sun which illuminates it. The sun is luminous by nature, the air by participation; hence when the sun ceases to shine it is dark: so God is Being by His Essence, while the creature exists only by participation, and if God withdrew His governing power from created things their species would then and there cease to be. God nevertheless preserves some things indirectly by the medium of certain causes; as water in the case of salt, which preserves meat from corruption. For there are many effects which depend primarily upon the First Cause, and secondarily upon intermediate causes, to the action of which their preservation is to be the more attributed in proportion as such causes are higher and nearer to the First Cause. Hence the philosopher says^ that the first mover is the cause of the continuity of generation, while to the second cause of motion, which is by the zodiac, is due the diversity which arises from generation and dissolution. Thus God sometimes preserves things in being by the medium of second causes.

Those who held that God could not annihilate anything, were in error, for God gives out of His free will, not from necessity; therefore, as He could at the beginning have not given, so He is free afterwards not to continue to give. But it is evident that, according to the order of Nature, nothing is annihilated. For things are either immaterial, and not in potentia to dissolution; or they are material, and so remain as matter, which is incorruptible; while the miraculous is a manifestation of the Divine favour, and the power and goodness of God are manifested by the preservation of things rather than by their annihilation.