God is absolutely the first cause. He acts from the laws of His own nature only, and is compelled by no one. For outside of Himself there can be nothing by which He may be determined to act. Therefore He acts solely from the laws of His own nature. And therefore also God alone is a free cause. The omnipotence of God has been actual from eternity and will be actual from eternity. The Divine intellect is the cause of things, both of their essence and of their existence. Thus it is the cause both of the essence and of the existence of the human intellect, but it differs from our intellect both in essence and in existence. The same may be said of the Divine will and the human will. The will cannot be called a free cause, but can only be termed necessary. The will is only a certain mode of thought, like the intellect. It requires a cause to determine it to action, and therefore cannot be called a free cause, but only a necessary cause. Hence it follows that God does not act from freedom of the will. For the will, like all other things, needs a cause to determine it to act in a certain manner. Things could have been produced by God in no other manner or order than that in which they have been. Things have been created by God in absolute perfection, because they have necessarily followed from His absolutely perfect nature. _The Divine Power and Decree_ Since in eternity there is no _when_, nor _before_, nor _after_, God cannot decree nor could He have ever decreed anything other than He has decreed in the perfection of His nature. For if He had decreed something else about creation, He would necessarily have had an intellect and a will different from those He now has. Could such a supposition be allowed, why cannot He now change His decree about creation yet remain perfect? All things depend on the Divine power; but God's will, because of his perfection, cannot be other than it is, and therefore things cannot be differently constituted. For to suppose otherwise is to subject God to fate, an absurdity which is not worth waste of time to refute. The sum of the matter is that God necessarily exists; that He is one God; that He acts from the necessity of His nature; that He is the free cause of all things; that all things depend on Him; and that all things have been predestined by Him. _II.--Concerning Mind_ I pass on to those things which must necessarily follow from the essence of the eternal and infinite God.