De omnipotentia Dei. Cur nos non lapis, arbor, etc., facti.
The Equal Ease of All Creation
God's almighty hand creates all things—from angels to worms, from heaven to a single leaf—with equal power and without gradation of difficulty.
Your almighty hand is always one and the same; it created angels in heaven and worms on earth — no greater in the one, no lesser in the other. For just as no hand could create an angel, so no hand could create a worm; just as no hand could create heaven, so no hand could create the smallest leaf of a tree; just as no hand could create a body, so no hand could make a single hair white or black — but your hand is almighty, and to it all things are equally possible.1 For it is no more possible for it to create a worm than an angel, no more impossible to stretch out heaven than a leaf, no easier to form a hair than a body, no more difficult to set the earth upon the waters than to set the waters upon the earth. But all things, whatever it willed, it made — in heaven and on earth, in the sea and in all the depths — and me among all things, just as it willed, it was able, and it knew.2
Why I Am What I Am
God could have made the soul a stone or a beast but did not will it, prompting the wondering question: why am I not something lesser?
Your hand, Lord, could indeed have made me a stone, or a bird, or a serpent, or some wild beast — and it knew how. But it did not will to, because of its own goodness.3 Why am I not a stone, or a tree, or some beast?
Goodness Alone Ordained My Being
The soul's existence as a human creature is ordained solely by God's goodness, entirely apart from any preceding merit.
Because that is how your goodness ordained it. And in order to ordain this, my merits did not come first.4
Read the original Latin
Omnipotens manus tua semper una et eadem, creavit in coelo Angelos, in terra vermiculos: non superior in illis, non inferior in istis. Sicut enim nulla manus Angelum, ita nulla posset creare vermiculum: sicut nulla coelum, ita nulla posset creare minimum arboris folium: sicut nulla corpus, ita nulla unum capillum album posset facere aut nigrum; sed omnipotens manus tua, cui omnia pari modo sunt possibilia. Nec enim possibilius est ei creare vermiculum, quam angelum; nec impossibilius extendere coelum, quam folium; nec levius formare capillum, quam corpus; nec difficilius fundare terram super aquas, quam aquas fundare super terram: sed omnia quaecumque voluit fecit, in coelo et in terra, in mari et in omnibus abyssis, et me inter omnia, sicut voluit, potuit et scivit. Potuit quidem manus tua, Domine, me lapidem, vel avem, vel serpentem vel belluam aliquam creare, et scivit: sed noluit propter suam bonitatem. Quare ego non lapis, vel arbor, vel aliqua bellua? Quia sic ordinavit bonitas tua. Et ut hoc ordinaret, non praecesserunt merita mea.
Notes
- 1 ↩The repeated 'nulla manus' (no hand) construction emphasizes creaturely impotence by contrast with God's omnipotence; the rhetorical force is preserved by rendering it literally rather than paraphrasing.
- 2 ↩The four comparative pairs (possibilius/impossibilius, levius/difficilius) drive home that God's power knows no gradient of difficulty; the translation preserves the parallel structure to keep that force.
- 3 ↩The shift from 'posset' (could) to 'noluit' (did not will) and the reason 'propter suam bonitatem' frames the speaker's human existence as a deliberate act of divine goodness, not a deficiency in God's power.
- 4 ↩The purpose clause 'ut hoc ordinaret' with 'non praecesserunt merita mea' underscores that the speaker's creation as a human being is entirely gratuitous — not preceded by any merit. This is a grace-theology point, not merely a chronological observation.
Pseudo-Augustine Soliloquia animae ad Deum (Meditations of the Soul to God) companion
A meditation like this, every morning
Chosen Portion serves the full 37-chapter work — and dozens like it — as free daily devotionals.
These soliloquies were written for daily private devotion, and the Chosen Portion app restores exactly that rhythm with one portion each morning.
- 30 ready-to-pray meditations, each readable in about 5 minutes
- A one-line response prompt per day so you pray it, not just read it
- The full 37 chapters unlocked in the app when the month ends