I must say at once that all the reasons showing that
God exists and is the first and unchangeable cause of all effects that don’t depend on human free will seem to me to show equally that he is also the cause of all the effects that do depend on it. For the only way to demonstrate that he exists is to consider him as a supremely perfect being; and
he wouldn’t be supremely perfect if anything could happen in the world that didn’t come entirely from him. It’s true that only faith can teach us what that grace is by which God raises us to a supernatural beatitude; but unaided philosophy shows us that not even the slightest thought could enter into a human mind without God’s willing it to
do so. . . . The scholastic distinction between universal and particular causes is irrelevant here. ·Here’s an example of it·: The sun is the universal cause of all flowers, but isn’t the ·particular· cause of the difference between tulips and roses. But that is because the production of flowers depends also on other particular causes that aren’t subordinated to the sun. ·Obviously that is irrelevant to our present topic, because· God is the universal cause of everything in such a way that he is also the total cause—·the sole cause·—of everything; so nothing can happen without his will.
God exists and is the first and unchangeable cause of all effects that don’t depend on human free will seem to me to show equally that he is also the cause of all the effects that do depend on it. For the only way to demonstrate that he exists is to consider him as a supremely perfect being; and
he wouldn’t be supremely perfect if anything could happen in the world that didn’t come entirely from him. It’s true that only faith can teach us what that grace is by which God raises us to a supernatural beatitude; but unaided philosophy shows us that not even the slightest thought could enter into a human mind without God’s willing it to
do so. . . . The scholastic distinction between universal and particular causes is irrelevant here. ·Here’s an example of it·: The sun is the universal cause of all flowers, but isn’t the ·particular· cause of the difference between tulips and roses. But that is because the production of flowers depends also on other particular causes that aren’t subordinated to the sun. ·Obviously that is irrelevant to our present topic, because· God is the universal cause of everything in such a way that he is also the total cause—·the sole cause·—of everything; so nothing can happen without his will.
Descartes
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