This fact--namely, that if creatures were not causes, creation would fail to obtain an end worthy of God--should be attentively considered. God, in creating, could only aim at rendering His creatures good, in imitation of Himself. If creatures were merely passive, they would have no goodness of their own, because they would have nothing but what they receive; and mere reception is not goodness, much less moral goodness. Those natures only are capable of any goodness of their own, and especially of moral goodness, which can desire and love goodness, and can operate, and hence become, by their own acts, causes of good.
Antonio Rosmini, Theodicy, vol. 2, p. 14.
