Derech Hashem – The Way of G-d 2:5:2
1.
And when it comes to G-d’s influence upon things 1 — that refers to what He does to manifest His will here in the world in the manner and to the degree that He wants it to be manifested.
As such, G-d intentionally set up everything to function as a series of steps and sequences 2. He wanted this system to function from the beginning and to continue on from there. And He uses it to maintain everything and to influence their circumstances and connections to each other 3.
So4 He first influences an exalted angel, who then influences a lower-level angel, etc., all the way down to the specific angel who influences the physical phenomenon that G-d means to bring about or to maintain 5.
2.
Nonetheless it’s G-d alone who’s ultimately responsible for the maintenance of everything on each on every level 6, as He alone enables things to continue to exist and to develop in their own way. But bringing about things in the material world as they are and in their context is the function of the system we cited above.
Footnotes:
1 Which was referred to in 2:5:1 and will be the focus of the following chapter.
2 As when orders pass down from a CEO to a VP, to a department adminsitrator, to an employee; or as when things pass from G-d’s will down to a series of angels who carry it out, as we’ll soon see.
Understand that G-d could very well have set up an entirely, radically different construct had He wanted to since He’s omnipotent, but He intentionally chose this system because it best serves His purposes,
The significance of this particular construct is discussed in several of Ramchal’s works. See for example Klach Pitchei Chochma 10, 30,
3 See 2:1:2 above.
4 When He wants to manifest something here by using the system of steps and sequences.
5 See Ramchal’s Assara Perakim 9 and Pitchei Chochma V’da’at 125, Klallim Rishonim 23, Klach Pitchei Chochma 63, as well as 1:5:2, 10 above.
6 See Da’at Tevunot 160.