The Highest Artist-God-in everything that had to be done, using His almighty power, that is, the Son, for “through Him everything came into being, and without Him nothing came into being” (John 1, 3), in the beginning and before everything else he created heaven and earth and called into being, although they never existed. If, perhaps, someone asks how and from where, then he will hear from us the following wise and truly excellent word: “Who knew the mind of the Lord? Or who was His adviser?” (Rom. 11:34).
… In each of the created deeds, the Creator was the Word, and only His wave gave life to everything. Saint Cyril of Alexandria. Creations, part 4, M., 1886, p. 9-11.
First of all, believe that there is one God who created everything, who brought everything out of nothing into being. He embraces everything. Himself being immense, and can neither be defined by the word nor comprehended by the mind. Shepherd Ermas. Monuments of ancient Christian writing in Russian translation, vol. 1, M., 1860, p. 254.
…The Creator created one whole world, so that the arrangement of many worlds would not lead to the idea of many Creators. Since the creation is one, we believe that its Creator is one. Saint Athanasius the Great. Creations, part 1, M., 1851, p. 65.
Since the Egyptians deified the visible creature and the Israelites, having lived with them for a long time, became involved in the same wickedness, then Moses, of necessity, offers them the doctrine of creation and clearly teaches that the creature has a beginning of being and that the Creator is the God of all. Blessed Theodoret of Kirsky. Creations, part 1. M., 1855, p. 7.
… If God is not alone eternal and everything else did not come from Him, then He is not God either. And if the world is co-eternal with God, therefore, equal to Him in being, then it is equal to God both in immutability, and in infinity, and in everything, which means that there is another God. But two eternal and common beginnings cannot be admitted according to the ideas of sound reason. Tertullian. Bishop Macarius (Bulgakov). Orthodox dogmatic theology, vol. 2, St. Petersburg, 1851, p. 10-11)*.
God created the invisible and visible world; and soul and body He also created.
…Some say that creatures have co-existed with God from eternity; but this is impossible. For how can from eternity coexist with the Infinite in everything, beings who are finite in everything, and how are they actually creatures if they are co-eternal with the Creator? But so say the Hellenes, who introduce God as the Creator not of nature, but only of qualities. We, recognizing God as omnipotent, say that He is the Creator not only of qualities, but also of natures endowed with qualities. If so, then the creatures from eternity did not exist with God.
… The all-sufficient God brought creatures from non-existence into existence, not because he needed anything, but so that they, according to their ability to perceive, partaking of His blessedness, would enjoy and that He Himself would rejoice in His deeds, seeing them rejoicing and always insatiably satiated by the insatiable. Saint Maximus the Confessor (68, 151, 155, 148).
… The very creation points to the One who created it, the very deed announces the One who produced it, and the world preaches the One who arranged it. The whole Church throughout the world received this tradition from the apostles.
The Creator of the world is the Word of God, and this is our Lord, Who in the last times became a man and existed in this world, invisibly contains everything created and is embedded in all creation, because the Word of God governs and disposes of everything; and for this He apparently came to his own, and became flesh, and prostrated himself on a tree, in order to restore everything in Himself. Saint Irenaeus of Lyons. Works. SPb., 1900, p. 130-131 485-486.
Before the world arose, there was only the Living and Boundless God. When the world was called into being from non-existence, God, of course, did not become limited, all the fullness of life and infinity remained with Him. But this fullness of life and infinity was also expressed in creatures, living and limited, of which there are immeasurably many, and all of them are endowed with life. Archpriest John Sergiev, vol. 1, M., 1894, p. 282-283.
By the action of the will of God, the worlds, visible and invisible, were created, man was created and redeemed, all events, public and private, have been and are taking place, from which shines, like the sun from heaven, God’s Goodness, God’s Omnipotence, God’s Wisdom. Bishop Ignatius (Bryanchaninov) (109, 80).
God created the world out of nothing
People can do something not out of nothing, but through matter. But God, in fact, surpasses people by the fact that He Himself called to being the matter of His creation, which did not exist before. Saint Irenaeus of Lyons (113, 149).
Just as a potter, who with the same skill made thousands of vessels, did not exhaust either art or strength, so the Creator of this universe, having a creative power not only sufficient for one world, but infinitely surpassing it, brought into being all the greatness of the visible with one wave of will. (4, 6). God does not create His creatures out of Himself, but through His activity brings them into being, just as a person who makes something with his hands does not produce his work out of himself. Saint Basil the Great (113, 150).
To imagine that God formed the world from ready-made matter would mean to equate his creativity with human art, which always needs some kind of substance (for example, a potter needs clay, a builder needs brick and stone, a carpenter and shipbuilder- in wood, a weaver in wool, a tanner in leather, a painter in paint, etc.), and not to understand the difference between man and God, not to understand that it is impossible for an image to have everything that the Prototype has. Blessed Theophylact (113, 149).
It is necessary to imagine everything in God as a whole: the will, wisdom, power and essence of things. If this is really so, then let no one trouble himself by searching and asking about matter, how and where it comes from, like those who say: if God is immaterial, then where does matter come from? How did the quantitative come from the non-quantitative, the visible from the invisible?.. To all such questions about matter, we have one answer: we must not assume that the Wisdom of God is not omnipotent and His Omnipotence is not wise. On the contrary, one must adhere to the idea that one is inseparable from the other, that both turn out to be one and the same, so that the other is seen along with the one. If in one and the same God there is wisdom and power, then He could not but know how to find the substance for the creation of beings, and could not but have the necessary power to realize thought. Saint Gregory of Nyssa (113, 149).
What would be great if God created the world from ready-made matter? And with us, an artist, having received a substance from someone, forms anything from it. But the power of God is manifested in this, that He produced from nothing whatever He willed.
… God brought everything from non-existence into existence, so that His greatness could be known from the creations. Saint Theophilus of Antioch (Bishop Macarius (Bulgakov), p. 14, 32).
Moses, making a forty-day fast on the mountain, sees God in knowledge, as it is written, and not in fortune-telling, and converses with Him, and speaks as someone speaks to his friend. He was taught by God, and he himself teaches about Him, teaches that God is eternal and does not depend on anything, but he also recognizes the non-existent as being, and from non-existence brings everything into being, and does not allow it to return to non-existence, – He Who in the beginning, with a wave and a single desire, produced from nothing the entire visible creation. Saint Gregory Palamas (65, 69).
If everything happened by itself without Providence, as the Epicureans assert, then everything would have to happen in the same way and be the same, and not different; in the universe, as in a single body, everything would have to be the sun or the moon, and with people the whole body would have to be either a hand, or an eye, or a foot. But none of this is now; we see that one is the sun, the other is the moon, and the other is the earth; and in human bodies also one is the foot, the other is the arm, the other is the head. And such a routine makes it clear that all this did not happen by itself, and even shows that everything was preceded by a reason from which one can recognize both the God who put in order and created the universe.
If God is not Himself the original cause of matter, but every being creates from ready-made matter, then it is obvious that He is powerless, because He is not able to produce anything real without matter, just as a woodcarver, no doubt, cannot make any things without wood. Saint Athanasius the Great (113, 149).
The universe was created, and God did not create it from Himself to be the same as He Himself is. On the contrary, He created her out of nothing, so that there would be no equal either to Him by Whom she was created, or to His Son, through Whom she was created … Out of nothing God created everything, but from Himself He did not create, but begot equal to Himself, whom we we call the Son of God. Blessed Augustine (113, 150).
The created world did not originate from the essence of God, but by the will and power of God it was brought from non-existence into existence… Birth consists in the fact that from the essence of the one who gives birth comes what is born, equal to him in essence. Creation and creation consists in the fact that what is created and created comes from outside, and not from the essence of the creator or creator, and, without any doubt, is not similar to him in essence. Saint John of Damascus (113, 150).
From nothing created (God the world) to glorify His greatness. Tertullian (Bishop Macarius (Bulgakov), p. 32).
So, let no one ask from what substance God made such great and wonderful creatures; He made everything out of nothing. Lactantius, Bishop Macarius (Bulgakov), p. 14.
According to Scripture, heaven, earth, fire, air and water were created from nothing. The light that was created on the first day, and everything else that was created after it, was already created from what was before. For when Moses speaks of being created out of nothing, he uses the word “created”: “God created the heavens and the earth” (Genesis 1:1). Venerable Ephraim the Syrian. Creations, part 8, M., 1853, p. 259.
…On the first day, God, according to His almighty word, created everything from non-existence, and on the other days He already creates everything from what existed (created on the first day). Saint John Chrysostom (40, 755).
Photo: Icon of Ever-Virgin Mother of God / Ikoni Mahnevi, https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100057324623799
(to be continued)
