(AP:30) Passing over the questions of cause and priority as
self-evident, it is plain from [xxi] , [xxii] , [xxiii] that that effect,
is most perfect which is produced immediately by God; the effect which
requires for its production several intermediate causes is, in that respect,
more imperfect. (31) But if those things which were made immediately by God
were made to enable him to attain his end, then the things which come after,
for the sake of which the first were made, are necessarily the most
excellent of all.
(AP:32) Further, this doctrine does away with the perfection of God: for,
if God acts for an object, he necessarily desires something which he lacks.
(33) Certainly, theologians and metaphysicians draw a distinction between
the object of want and the object of assimilation; still they confess that
God made all things for the sake of himself, not for the sake of creation.
(AP:34) They are unable to point to anything prior to creation, except God
himself, as an object for which God should act, and are therefore driven to
admit (as they clearly must), that God lacked those things for whose
attainment he created means, and further that he desired them.
(AP:35) We must not omit to notice that the followers of this doctrine,
anxious to display their talent in assigning final causes, have imported
a new method of argument in proof of their theory--namely, a reduction,
not to the impossible, but to ignorance; thus showing that they have no
other method of exhibiting their doctrine.
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