I f i t i s a s k e d : Knowledge alone is not sufficient; will is also necessary. If there were no will, knowledge would be insufficient, wouldn’t it?
T h e A n s w e r : All beings both indicate and testify to all-encompassing knowledge, and they point to the comprehensive will of the one possessing that knowledge. It is as follows:
While hesitating among great numbers of possibilities, an ordered individuality is given to all things, especially to animate beings, through a determined probability from among a great host of muddled probabilities, and through a productive way from among a great many fruitless ways. This demonstrates a universal will of many facets.
Measured shapes and well-ordered identities have been given to all things in a most sensitive, delicate measure and with a most fine and subtle order. They have been given these from among the inanimate elements which flow without balance in confused, monotonous floods, and from among the barren, fruitless paths and endless possibilities that surround all beings. This necessarily and self-evidently demonstrates that they are the works of a comprehensive will. For choosing innumerable states occurs by means of a designation, a choice, a purpose, and a will. Deliberate intention and desire specify them. Specifying requires a specifier and choice requires a chooser. And that specifier and chooser is will.
For example, the creation of a being like man, who resembles a machine assembled from hundreds of different components and systems, from a drop of water; and the creation of a bird with its hundreds of different members out of a simple egg; and the creation of a tree, which is separated into hundreds of different parts, out of a simple seed – the creation of these testify to power and knowledge, just as they indicate decisively and necessarily their Maker’s universal will. And with that will He gives a distinct, particular shape to every component, every member, every part. He clothes them in a chosen state.
I n S h o r t : Just as there are between different things many resemblances and coincidences with regard to their essentials and results, for example, between the major members and organs of animals’ bodies, and they display a single stamp of unity, indicating decisively that all animals have the same Maker who is One, Single, and possesses Unity; so too the different identities and distinct features of the animals, all determined in accordance with wisdom and purpose, shows that their Single Maker acts with choice and will. He does what He wishes to do, He does not do what He does not wish to do; He acts with intention and will.
There are as many indications of and attestations to divine knowledge and dominical will as there are beings, indeed as the beings’ attributes and