What now could be said (to look down) from some (peak) overhanging
(Essence and Intelligence), upon (their principle)? Could you
describe what you saw from there as being what it is fortuitously?
Certainly not! Neither His nature nor His manner would be contingent.
He is merely (an absolute, unexplainable) existence (a "thus"). Even
this term "thus," however, would be improper, for, on applying it to
the First, it would become determinate, and become "such a thing."
Whoever has seen the First would not say He was, or was not that;
otherwise, you would be reducing Him to the class of things which may
be designated as this or that; but the First is above all these things.
When you shall have seen Him who is infinite ("indefinite"), you will
be able to name all the things that are after Him (you will be able to
name Him whom all things follow); but you must not classify Him among
these. Consider Him as the universal Power essentially master (of
himself), which is what He wishes; or rather, who has imposed His will
upon (all) beings, but who Himself is greater than all volition, and
who classifies volition as below Himself. (To speak strictly therefore)
He did not even will to be what He is (he did not even say, I shall be
that); and no other principle made Him be what He is.
THE SUPREME BANISHES ALL CHANCE BY ASSIGNING LIMIT AND SHAPE TO EACH
FORM.
10. He (Strato the Peripatetic?) who insists that the Good is what it
is by chance, should be asked how he would like to have it demonstrated
to him that the hypothesis of chance is false--in case it be false--and
how chance could be made to disappear from the universe? If there be
a nature (such as the nature of the one Unity), which makes (chance)
disappear, it itself could not be subject to chance. If we subject
to chance the nature which causes other beings not to be what they
are by chance, nothing will be left that could have been derived
from chance. But the principle of all beings banishes chance from the
universe by giving to each (being) a form, a limitation, and a shape;
and it is impossible to attribute to chance the production of beings
thus begotten in a manner conforming to reason. A cause exists there.
Chance reigns only in things that do not result from a plan, which are
not concatenated, which are accidental. How indeed could we attribute
to chance the existence of the principle of all reason, order, and
determination? Chance no doubt sways many things[188]; but it could
not control the production of intelligence, reason, and order. Chance,
in fact, is the contrary of reason; how then could (chance) produce
(reason)? If chance do not beget Intelligence, so much the more could
it not have begotten the still superior and better Principle; for
chance had no resources from which to produce this principle; chance
itself did not exist; and it would not have been in any manner able
to impart eternal (qualities). Thus, since there is nothing anterior
to the (Divinity), and as He is the First, we shall have to halt our
inquiry about this Principle, and say nothing more about Him, rather
examining the production of the beings posterior to Him. As to Him
himself, there is no use considering how He was produced, as He really
was not produced.