On Providence 2

¹As to the quantity of the substance assuming that it was really created what we have to say is this. God estimated for the creation of the world just sufficient matter that there should be neither deficiency nor excess. For it would be monstrous to suppose that while particular craftsmen when framing something, especially anything costly, estimate what material is just sufficient, He who invented numbers, measures and equality in them had no thought for what was adequate. I will say indeed with all confidence that the world needed neither less nor more substance for its construction, since otherwise it would not have been made perfect nor complete in all its parts, whereas actually it was made excellently out of a perfect substance. For it is a characteristic of a complete master of his art to see before he begins any constructive work that he has sufficient material. Now a man even if superior to everyone in knowledge may perhaps, as he cannot escape the errors congenital to mortals, be deceived as to the quantity of material needed when he practises his craft. He may sometimes find it too little and have to add, sometimes excessive and have to take away. But He who is as it were the fountain head of all knowledge was sure to provide nothing deficient or superfluous, since the standards which He employs are all to be extolled as elaborated with absolute accuracy. A person who wishes to waste his time in foolishness is sure also to confront us at once with the works of all other craftsmen as having improved their construction by adding to or diminishing the material. But we leave futile argument for the sophist: the task of wisdom is to investigate all that nature has to show.