Chapter 72 — The cause of diversity in things

If things relate to unity and multiplicity as they relate to being, and if the entire being of things depends on God, as has been shown to be the case, the cause of plurality in things must be sought in God. We must now examine how this is the case.

Every agent cause necessarily produces something like itself, according as this is possible. Now, the things produced by God could not be endowed with a likeness of the divine goodness in the simplicity in which that goodness is found in God. Hence what is one and simple in God had to be represented in created things in various and dissimilar ways. Consequently, there had to be diversity in the things produced by God, in order that the diversity found in things might in its own way imitate the divine perfection.

Furthermore, whatever is caused is finite, since only God’s essence is infinite, as was demonstrated above. And any finite thing is made better by the addition of something else. Hence it was better to have diversity in created things, and thus to have multiple good things, than to have but one kind of thing produced by God. Now, the best cause appropriately produces the best effects. Therefore, it was fitting for God to produce in things the diversity that created being permits.