The Goodness of God follows; here it is not to be understood of His intrinsic Perfection. That is, as each and every thing, as far as it has Being, also has Metaphysical Truth and Goodness, by which is understood the Conformity of its Being with the approval of the divine Will: so in this sense Goodness must have its place most perfectly in the Most Perfect Being, so that whatever of reality is necessarily contained in the Most Perfect Being, is most perfectly conformed to the Will of the same, whence God is most pleased in His own Perfections, because He understands those to agree precisely with Himself: and from this complacency and acquiescence in Himself arises the Blessedness of highest Deity.
Nor of His Loveableness/Desirability with respect to creatures, of which He is truly the One highest Good, Psalm 4:6, 7; 73:25, 26, as having all the Requisites of this Good, sought in vain elsewhere. That is, such is the abundance of Goodness in God through His Omnisufficiency that nothing is able to be thought lacking among all the classes of good things, whereby He is not able in each and every case to satisfy each and every creature. His Sufficiency is also agreeable to certain created things, but only with respect to this or that defect, which they are able to exclude or to offset by their presence; universal and perpetual Sufficiency, supplying so much to one that it is able to desire and to receive nothing greater, is agreeable to no creature; all the Goodness and Sufficiency of those is ultimately dependent upon God, who, if He should restrain His influx, the creature, since it is nothing of itself, of itself will not prevail to offset any of its neediness: on the other hand, the greater the Sufficiency in secondary causes, the more illustriously it manifests the plenitude of the fountain from which it springs. Since God Himself, because He is Infinitely Perfect, infinitely exceeds the finite neediness of each and every finite thing: if God should communicate His infinite self with a finite thing, He will be able fully and completely to supply everything, at least for this defect: either He does it mediately, by offsetting the defect of one creature by the substitution of another; or especially by an immediate sense of the consummately pleasant enjoyment of Himself, which is the all the more delightful, the sweeter are the waters that are drunk from the very fountain.
But, because God is the highest Good, He is also consummately Loveable/Desirable to His Creatures; since each and every thing, as far as it has Goodness, also has Loveableness/Desirability; and the will, rightly tending toward its highest perfection, strives to enjoy the good, of which it senses itself to be destitute in itself, by the union of the other with itself. Hence, because God alone is Independently and Omnisufficiently God, He alone is to be loved because of Himself; indeed, He is worthy of a love so great that a finite thing is not even capable of it: while things other than God ought to be loved only because of God, and subordinately to the love bestowed upon Him, Matthew 22:36-40: compare JOHANNES LULOFS’ Theologiam naturalem theoreticam, § CXLIII; JOHANN FRANZ BUDDEUS’ Elementa philosophiæ practicæ, part I, chapter IV, pages 125-127.
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