On God's Preservation and Integration of the Universe

God, as he alone knew how, completed the primary principles of creatures and the universal essences of beings once for all. Yet he is still at work, not only preserving these creatures in their very existence but effecting the formation, progress, and sustenance of the individual parts that are potential within them. Even now in his providence he is bringing about the assimilation of particulars to universals until he might unite creatures' own voluntary inclination to the more universal natural principle of rational being through the movement of these particlar creatures toward well-being, and make them harmonious and self-moving in relation to another and to the whole universe. In this way there shall be no intentional divergence between universals and particulars.

St. Maximus, Ad Thalassium 2 {From On the The Cosmic Mystery of Jesus Christ}