The order and beauty of creation gives us an idea of the power and greatness of God
2 min • Digitized on February 13, 2022
From The Sinner’s Guide, page 21
By Venerable Louis of Granada
If you would have farther proof of the infinite power and greatness of God, contemplate the order and beauty of the world.
Let us first bear in mind, as St. Denis tells us, that effects are proportioned to their cause, and then consider the admirable order, marvellous beauty, and incomprehensible grandeur of the universe.
There are stars in heaven several hundred times larger than the earth and sea together. Consider also the infinite variety of creatures in all parts of the world, on the earth, in the air, and in the water, each with an organization so perfect that never has there been discovered in them anything superfluous or not suited to the end for which they are destined; and this truth is in no way weakened by the existence of monsters which are but distortions of nature, due to the imperfection of created causes.
And this vast and majestic universe God created in a single, instant, according to the opinion of St. Augustine and St. Clement of Alexandria; from nothing He drew being, without matter or element, instrument or model, unlimited by time or space. He created the whole world and all that is contained therein by a single act of His will. And He could as easily have created millions of worlds greater, more beautiful, and more populous than ours, and as easily reduce them again to nothing.
Since, therefore, according to St. Denis, effects bear a proportion to their cause, what must be the power of a cause which has produced such effects?
Yet all these great and perfect works are vastly inferior to their Divine Author. Who could not but be filled with admiration and astonishment in contemplating the greatness of such a Being? Though we cannot see it with our corporal eyes, yet the reflections we have just indicated must enable us in a measure to conceive the grandeur and incomprehensibility of His power.