Chapter I.
On the production of the whole world.
These things having been briefly understood beforehand concerning the Trinity of God, some things must be said concerning the creation of the world. Concerning which these things are to be held in summary: namely, that the whole of the world-machine was produced into being in time and from nothing by one first, sole, and supreme principle: whose power, although it is immense, nevertheless disposed all things in a certain weight, number, and measure. - These things are to be understood generally concerning the production of things, from which truth is gathered and error is repudiated. For by this, that it is said in time, the error of those positing an eternal world is excluded. By this, that it is said from nothing, the error of those positing eternity regarding the material principle is excluded. By this, that it is said from one principle, the error of the Manichaeans positing a plurality of principles is excluded. By this, that it is said sole and supreme, the error of those positing that God produced lower creatures through the ministry of intelligences is excluded. Moreover, by this, that is added in a certain weight, number, and measure, it is shown that the creature is the effect of the creating Trinity under a threefold genus of causality: efficient, from which there is in the creature unity, mode, and measure; exemplary, from which there is in the creature truth, species, and number: final, from which there is in the creature goodness, order, and weight. Which indeed are found in all creatures as a vestige of the Creator, whether corporeal, or spiritual, or composed of both.
Now the reason for understanding the aforesaid is this: because for there to be a perfect order and stability in things, it is necessary that all things be reduced to one principle, which indeed is first , so that it may give stability: to the rest, and most perfect, so that it may give completion to all the rest. Since therefore the first principle, in which there is stability, cannot be other than one alone; if it produces the world, since it cannot produce it from itself, it is necessary that it produce from nothing. And because production from nothing posits being after non-being on the part of the thing produced, and immensity in the producing power on the part of the principle, since this belongs to God alone: it is necessary that the creature of the world was 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 necessarily act from itself and according to itself and for the sake of itself — because it needs nothing outside itself in acting — it is necessary that it have, with respect to any creature, the intention of a threefold cause, namely efficient, exemplary, and final: it is also necessary that every creature be related to the first cause according to this threefold relation. For every creature is established in being by the efficient cause, is conformed to the exemplar, and is ordered to the end: and through this it is one, true, good: modified, beautiful, ordered: measured, distinct, and weighted: for weight is an ordinative inclination .
And these things have indeed been said generally of every creature, whether corporeal, or incorporeal, or composed of both, as is human nature.