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| God Known by His Works. His Goodness Shown in His Creative Energy; But Everlasting in Its Nature; Inherent in God, Previous to All Exhibition of It. The First Stage of This Goodness Prior to Man.
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Chapter
III.—God Known by His Works. His Goodness Shown in His Creative
Energy; But Everlasting in Its Nature; Inherent in God, Previous to All
Exhibition of It. The First Stage of This Goodness Prior to
Man.
It will therefore be right for us, as we enter on the
examination of the known God, when the question arises, in what condition He
is known to us, to begin with His works, which are prior to man; so
that His goodness, being discovered immediately along with Himself, and
then constituted and prescriptively settled, may suggest to us some
sense whereby we may understand how the subsequent order of things came
about. The disciples of Marcion, moreover, may possibly be able, while
recognising the goodness of our God, to learn how worthy it is likewise
of the Divine Being, on those very grounds whereby we have proved it to
be unworthy in the case of their god. Now this very point,2725
which is a material one in their
scheme,2726
| 2726 Agnitionis,
their Gnostic scheme. | Marcion did
not find in any other god, but eliminated it for himself out of his own
god. The first goodness, then,2727
| 2727 Denique. This particle
refers back to the argument previous to its interruption by the
allusion to Marcion and his followers. | was that of the
Creator, whereby God was unwilling to remain hidden for ever; in other
words, (unwilling) that there should not be a something by which God
should become known. For what, indeed, is so good as the knowledge and
fruition2728
| 2728 Fructus, the enjoyment
of God’s works. | of God? Now,
although it did not transpires that this was good, because as yet there
existed nothing to which it could transpire,2729
| 2729 Apparebat. [Was not
manifest.] |
yet God foreknew what good would eventually transpire, and therefore He
set Himself about developing2730
His own perfect
goodness, for the accomplishment of the good which was to transpire;
not, indeed, a sudden goodness issuing in some accidental boon2731
| 2731 Obventiciæ
bonitatis. | or in some excited impulse,2732
| 2732 Provocaticiæ
animationis. | such as must be dated simply from the moment
when it began to operate. For if it did itself produce its own
beginning when it began to operate, it had not, in fact, a beginning
itself when it acted. When, however, an initial act had been once done
by it, the scheme of temporal seasons began, for distinguishing and
noting which, the stars and luminaries of heaven were arranged in their
order. “Let them be,” says God, “for seasons, and for
days, and years.”2733
Previous, then, to
this temporal course, (the goodness) which created time had not time;
nor before that beginning which the same goodness originated, had it a
beginning. Being therefore without all order of a beginning, and
all mode of time, it will be reckoned to possess an age, measureless in
extent2734
and endless in
duration;2735
nor will it be
possible to regard it as a sudden or adventitious or impulsive emotion,
because it has nothing to occasion such an estimate of itself; in other
words, no sort of temporal sequence. It must therefore be
accounted an eternal attribute, inbred in God,2736
| 2736 Deo ingenita
“Natural to,” or “inherent in.” |
and everlasting,2737
| 2737 Perpetua. [Truly, a
sublime Theodicy.] | and on this account
worthy of the Divine Being, putting to shame for ever2738
| 2738 Suffundens jam
hinc. | the benevolence of Marcion’s god,
subsequent as he is to (I will not say) all beginnings and times, but
to the very malignity of the Creator, if indeed malignity could
possibly have been found in goodness.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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