What Lies Beyond Our Understanding

In fact, this word “chance” is the expression of people who think in a haphazard and illogical way. They cannot understand the causes of these things, and because their own grasp is so feeble, they suppose that whatever they cannot give a reason for is ordered without reason. There are, beyond question, some things with wonderful natural properties, which are very hard to understand fully: for example, the nature of hot springs. For no one can easily explain the cause of so powerful a fire, and it is truly surprising that, though it is surrounded on every side by a body of cold water, it loses none of its own heat. Such things seem to occur only rarely throughout the world. They are meant, I am convinced, to give humankind convincing evidence of the power of that Providence which ordains that two directly opposite natures, heat and cold, should come in this way from one and the same source.

Many indeed, countless in fact, are the gifts God has given for the comfort and enjoyment of human beings. Among them the fruit of the olive tree and of the vine deserve special notice: the one for its power to renew and cheer the soul, the other because it serves our enjoyment and is also suited to curing disease of the body. Marvelous, too, is the course of rivers, flowing night and day in unceasing motion and offering a picture of ever-flowing, never-ending life. And equally wonderful is the steady exchange of day and night.