On the Providence of the Gods

"If it is necessary to define the mode of the providence of the Gods, one must lay down as a principle that it is spontaneous, unpolluted, immaterial and ineffable. For the Gods do not guide things either by investigating what is fitting, or exploring the good of every thing by ambiguous reasonings, or by looking externally and following out the consequences as humans do in the forethought which they exert on their own affairs; rather, anticipating in themselves the measures of the whole of things and producing the essence of every thing from themselves, and also looking to themselves, the Gods lead and perfect all things 'in a silent path' [Euripides, Trojan Women 887-888] by their very being, and fill them with good. But though the Gods act by their being alone, they do not operate, like nature, without deliberate choice, and though they operate according to their will, they are not deprived, like particular souls, of production according to essence, but they combine the two into one communion; that is, they will whatever they can accomplish by their very being, and since they can do and make all things by their very being, the cause of their action coincides with their unenvying will."


Proclus, The Platonic Theology, I 15. 74. 25 - 75. 15.