Merit is something which is comprehensible; it is something which is clear and distinct, so that it can be made intelligible. But intelligence is not intelligible except to its own self. Intelligence knows that I am; but it does not know what I am. Such is the Nature of God. Intelligence would not have known its own power and existence, if it had not known something besides itself. So God knows Himself by manifestation. Manifestation is the self of God, but a self which is limited, a self that makes Him know that He is perfect when He compares His own Being with this limited self which we call nature. Therefore the purpose of the whole Creation is the realization that God Himself gains by discovering His own Perfection through this manifestation.