“IT is one thing to be, and another thing to be primarily (principipaliter), one thing to be subject to change, and another thing to be independent of change. For all these things [i.e. creatures] are in being, but they are not maintained in being by themselves, and unless they are maintained by the hand of a governing agent, they could never be…. For all things were made out of nothing, and their being would again go into nothing, unless the author of all things held it by the hand of governance.”
~Pope St. Gregory I (540 - 604): Morals, 16, 45.