God is therefore the cause of everything's action because he gives to everything its power to act, preserves it in existence, and puts it into action, and because by his power every other power acts. And if we add to this that God is his own power and that he is present in all things not as part of their essence but to maintain them in existence, we shall conclude that he acts immediately within every agent, while not eliminating the action of the will and of the nature. --From: On the Power of God, q.3, a.7
If God can produce all natural effects through himself, it is yet not superfluous for him to produce them through certain causes, inasmuch as this is not owing to the insufficiency of his power but to the immensity of his goodness, which made him will to communicate his likeness to things not only in respect to their being but also in respect to their being causes of other things; for in these two ways all creatures have in common the divine likeness given to them...Likewise in this way the beauty of order appears in creatures.
It is also evident that the same effect is attributed to a natural cause and to God, not so that one part is caused by God and another part by the natural agent, but the whole effect comes from each, yet differently, just as the whole of the one same effect is attributed to the instrument and likewise attributed to the principal agent. --Summa of Christian Teaching III, 70
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