Everyone enjoys seeking the causes of things. It was Cicero, Roman orator and statesman, who said, "The causes of things are ever more interesting than the events themselves." Letters to Atticus, Bk. IX, Sect. 5; And the poet Virgil declared, "Happy the man who has been able to understand the causes of things." Georgics, Bk. II;
Even earlier the Greek philosopher Plato expounded a philosophy that was an elevated expression of idealism, seeing God as the supreme intelligence governing all things.
Through the centuries, both before and after the birth of Christ Jesus, philosophers and theologians, prophets and preachers, have ascribed to God the cause of things both spiritual and material. They have held that God governs through law, some believing, like the French philosopher Malebranche, that He is the cause of every effect, good or evil; others holding that He works by general laws that produce their own effects.
