He Himself moves all temporal things, so He knows all times with a knowledge that time cannot measure.And therefore He saw that what He had made was good, when He saw that it was good to make it.And when He saw it made, He had not on that account a twofold nor any way increased knowledge of it; as if He had less knowledge before He made what He saw.For certainly He would not be the perfect worker He is, unless His knowledge were so perfect as to receive no addition from His finished works.Wherefore, if the only object had been to inform us who made the light, it had been enough to say, "God made the light;" and if further information regarding the means by which it was made had been intended, it would have sufficed to say, "And God said, Let there be light, and there was light," that we might know not only that God had made the world, but also that He had made it by the word.But because it was right that three leading truths regarding the creature be intimated to us, viz., who made it, by what means, and why, it is written, "God said, Let there be light, and there was light.And God saw the light that it was good." If, then, we ask who made it, it was "God."If, by what means, He said "Let it be," and it was.If we ask, why He made it, "it was good." Neither is there any author more excellent than God, nor any skill more efficacious than the word of God, nor any cause better than that good might be created by the good God.This also Plato has assigned as the most sufficient reason for the creation of the world, that good works might be made by a good God;(3) whether he read this passage, or, perhaps, was informed of these things by those who had read them, or, by his quick-sighted genius, penetrated to things spiritual and invisible through the things that are created, or was instructed regarding them by those who had discerned them CHAP.22.--OF THOSE WHO DO NOT APPROVE OF CERTAIN THINGS WHICH ARE APART OF THIS
GOOD CREATION OF A GOOD CREATOR, AND WHO THINK THAT THERE IS SOME NATURALEVIL.
This cause, however, of a good creation, namely, the goodness of God,--this cause, I say, so just and fit, which, when piously and carefully weighed, terminates all the controversies of those who inquire into the origin of the world, has not been recognized by some heretics,(1) because there are, forsooth, many things, such as fire, frost, wild beasts, and so forth, which do not suit but injure this thinblooded and frail mortality of our flesh, which is at present under just punishment.They do not consider how admirable these things are in their own places, how excellent in their own natures, how beautifully adjusted to the rest of creation, and how much grace they contribute to the universe by their own contributions as to a commonwealth; and how serviceable they are even to ourselves, if we use them with a knowledge of their fit adaptations,--so that even poisons, which are destructive when used injudiciously, become wholesome and medicinal when used in conformity with their qualities and design; just as, on the other hand, those things which give us pleasure, such as food, drink, and the light of the sun, are found to be hurtful when immoderately or unseasonably used.And thus divine providence admonishes us not foolishly to vituperate things, but to investigate their utility with care; and, where our mental capacity or infirmity is at fault, to believe that there is a utility, though hidden, as we have experienced that there were other things which we all but failed to discover.For this concealment of the use of things is itself either an exercise of our humility or a levelling of our pride; for no nature at all is evil, and this is a name for nothing but the want of good.But from things earthly to things heavenly, from the visible to the invisible, there are some things better than others; and for this purpose are they unequal, in order that they might all exist.Now God is in such sort a great worker in great things, that He is not less in little things,--for these little things are to be measured not by their own greatness (which does not exist), but by the wisdom of their Designer;as, in the visible appearance of a man, if one eyebrow be shaved off, how nearly nothing is taken from the body, but how much from the beauty!--for that is not constituted by bulk, but by the proportion and arrangement of the members.But we do not greatly wonder that persons, who suppose that some evil nature has been generated and propagated by a kind of opposing principle proper to it, refuse to admit that the cause of the creation was this, that the good God produced a good creation.
For they believe that He was driven to this enterprise of creation by the urgent necessity of repulsing the evil that warred against Him, and that He mixed His good nature with the evil for the sake of restraining and conquering it; and that this nature of His, being thus shamefully polluted, and most cruelly oppressed and held captive, He labors to cleanse and deliver it, and with all His pains does not wholly succeed; but such part of it as could not be cleansed from that defilement is to serve as a prison and chain of the conquered and incarcerated enemy.
The Manichaeans would not drivel, or rather, rave in such a style as this, if they believed the nature of God to be, as it is, unchangeable and absolutely incorruptible, and subject to no injury;and if, moreover, they held in Christian sobriety, that the soul which has shown itself capable of being altered for the worse by its own will, and of being corrupted by sin, and so, of being deprived of the light of eternal truth,--that this soul, I say, is not a part of God, nor of the same nature as God, but is created by Him, and is far different from its Creator.
CHAP.23.---OF THE ERROR IN WHICH THE DOCTRINE OF ORIGEN IS INVOLVED.