The Literal Meaning of Genesis
BOOK EIGHT 65
Hence, they become partakers of His eternity, truth, and will forever beyond time and place. They are moved, however, by His command even in time, although He is not moved in time. They do not turn from or withdraw from the contemplation of
Him, but they simultaneously contemplate Him without the limits of space and time and carry out His commands in their subjects, moving themselves through time and moving bodies through time and space in accordance with what is proper to their activity. Hence it is that God by the twofold working of His providence is over all creatures, that is, over natures that they may have existence, and over wills that they may do nothing without either His command or His permission. !°7
CHAPTER 25
How creatures receive intrinsic or extrinsic and corporeal or incorporeal help.
46. The whole corporeal creation, therefore, does not receive extrinsic assistance from any corporeal source.!°8 For outside of this whole corporeal creation there is no corporeal being; otherwise it would not be the whole. But intrinsically it is helped by an incorporeal force, since it is God who makes it possible for it to exist, For from Him and through Him and in Him are all things. 10°
Parts of this same whole are enabled by intrinsic help (or I should say, are made) to be subsistent beings; and they are assisted extrinsically by some corporeal force in their development, for example, by food, by cultivation of the land, by medicine, and by anything that serves for adornment so that they may be not only healthy and productive but also fair to behold.
47. Spiritual creatures, if they are perfect and blessed, as is the case with the holy angels, in so far as their own well-being is concerned are assisted only intrinsically by an incorporeal force in order to exist and be happy. God speaks to them interiorly in a mysterious and indescribable manner, not by letters