The Words | 29. Word - Second Aim | 546
(533-556)

Divine Power is essential, in which case, impotence cannot intervene in it. Also, it is connected to the inner dimensions of things, so obstacles cannot become interpenetrated with it. Also, its relation is according to laws, so particulars are equal to universals, minor things are like comprehensive ones. We shall prove these three matters.

FIRST MATTER: Pre-Eternal Power is the necessary inherent quality of the Most Pure and Holy Divine Essence. That is to say, it is of necessity intrinsic to the Essence, it can in no way be separated from It. Since this is so, the Essence which necessitates that power clearly cannot be affected by impotence, the opposite to power. For if that were the case, it would entail the combining of opposites. Since the Essence cannot be affected by impot-ence, self-evidently it cannot intervene in the power which is the inherent quality of that Essence. Since impotence cannot intervene in that essential power, clearly there can be no degrees in it. For the degrees of existence of a thing are though the intervention of its opposites.

For example, the degrees of heat are through the intervention of cold, and the degrees of beauty through the intervention of ugliness; further examples can be made in the same way. Since in contingent beings these qualities are not true, natural, and inherent, necessary qualities, their opposites may enter them. With the existence of degrees, diversity, variance, and change arose in the world. Since there can be no degrees in Pre-Eternal power, of necessity, those things decreed by it will be the same in relation to it. The greatest will be equal to the smallest, and particles the same as the stars. The resurrection of all mankind will be as easy for that power as the raising to life of a single individual; the creation of spring as easy as the giving of form to a single flower. Whereas if attributed to causes, the creation of a single flower would be as difficult as the spring.

It has been proved in the footnote to the last section of the Fourth Degree of 'God is Most Great' in the Second Station of this Word, and in the Twenty-Second Word, and in the Twentieth Letter and in its Addendum, that when the creation of beings is attributed to the Single One of Unity, all things become as easy as one thing. If they are attributed to causes, the creation of a single thing becomes as difficult and problematical as that of all things.

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