SECTION 4. -- The Dependence of all things on God.

Thesis XII. -- All things in this world owe their origin either immediately or mediately to an act of Divine power.

83. According to the preceding proposition, all things in this world are contingent. Consequently there is no one among them which exists by its own nature. They all demand a cause for their existence. For the present we will not inquire whether this cause could not itself be a contingent substance, say a spirit other than God and distinct from all things comprehended under the term "this world." Whatever power of production may be communicable to a contingent being, that power must be derived from the same source whence that contingent being itself is derived, namely, from the self-existent First Cause. Consequently, before any further inquiry, we are right in ascribing the origin of all things in this world to the power of that Cause.