Reasons and ways God is far superior to any created thing or being
2 min • Digitized on February 10, 2022
From The Sinner’s Guide, page 17
By Venerable Louis of Granada
We shall better understand this truth if we consider with more attention the vast difference between this uncreated Being and all other beings, between the Creator and His creatures.
The latter without exception have had a beginning and may have an end, while this eternal Being is without beginning and without end.
They all acknowledge a superior and depend upon another, while He has no superior and is the supreme Arbiter of all things.
Creatures are composed of various substances, while He is a pure and simple Being; were He composed of diverse substances it would presuppose a being above and before Him to ordain the composition of these substances, which is altogether impossible.
Creatures are subject to change; God is immutable. They all admit of greater perfection; they can increase in possessions, in knowledge. God cannot increase in perfection, containing within Himself all perfection; nor in possessions, for He is the source of all riches; nor in knowledge, for everything is present to His eternal omniscience.
Therefore Aristotle calls Him a pure act—that is, supreme perfection, which admits of no increase.
The needs of creatures subject them to movement and change; God, having no necessities, is fixed and immovable, and present in all places.
We find in all creatures diversities which distinguish them one from another, but the purity of God’s essence admits of no distinction; so that His being is His essence, His essence is His power, His power is His will, His will is His understanding, His understanding is His being, His being is His wisdom, His wisdom is His justice, His justice is His mercy.
And though the last two attributes are differently manifested, the duty of mercy being to pardon, that of justice to punish, yet they are one and the same power.