Photo: Courtesy of NASA/Hubble Telescope/Cat's Eye Nebula

"Yours, O LORD,
are grandeur and power...
yours, O LORD, is the sovereignty; ...."
(1 Chr 29:11)

God in himself is pure act or actuality and active power is the principle acting upon something else or God acting upon and through his creatures. (Summa, Part I, No. 25, Q. 1)

God is the ruler of all things because He is their first cause and the end of Divine government is the Divine goodness. (Summa, Part I, No. 103, Q. 5) He governs all his creature by his power and intelligent design in such a way that that nothing escapes his eternal presence and power. Creatures translate God's eternity into motion toward the end destined by God which is Himself.

In the cosmic order of things all creatures are subject to physical and biological laws. For example, if I jump out of the window I will hurt of kill myself because I am subject to the law of gravity. Likewise, if I stop eating and drinking, I will die because nourishment is a biological imperative.

All creatures play their part as secondary causes in God government of his creation. They have a certain autonomy to act and react toward their environment and to fit into the "social order" of things. Man participates in this order in a special way, that is, by his intelligence and free will. Even though man is free, he non-the-less must choose the good even when he chooses a lesser good (sin) in preference to goods in harmony with God's design. Man's nature is oriented toward the good because his destiny is the eternal goodness of God. Man's ruling power cannot escape God's sovereignty because his nature is dependent on God.

I sing the almighty power of God,
that made the mountains rise,
that spread the flowing seas abroad,
and built the lofty skies.
I sing the wisdom that ordained
the sun to rule the day;
the moon shines full at God's command,
and all the stars obey.

Theocratic Rule