The Next Stage Occurs in the Creation of Man by the Eternal Word. Spiritual as Well as Physical Gifts to Man. The Blessings of Man's Free-Will

The goodness of God having, therefore, provided man for the pursuit of the knowledge of Himself, added this to its original notification,²⁷³⁹ that it first prepared a habitation for him, the vast fabric (of the world) to begin with, and then afterwards²⁷⁴⁰ the vaster one (of a higher world,²⁷⁴¹ ) that he might on a great as well as on a smaller stage practise and advance in his probation, and so be promoted from the good which God had given him, that is, from his high position, to God's best; that is, to some higher abode.²⁷⁴² In this good work God employs a most excellent minister, even His own Word. "My heart," He says, "hath emitted my most excellent Word."²⁷⁴³ Let Marcion take hence his first lesson on the noble fruit of this truly most excellent tree. But, like a most clumsy clown, he has grafted a good branch on a bad stock. The sapling, however, of his blasphemy shall be never strong: it shall wither with its planter, and thus shall be manifested the nature of the good tree. Look at the total result: how fruitful was the Word! God issued His fiat, and it was done: God also saw that it was good;²⁷⁴⁴ not as if He were ignorant of the good until He saw it; but because it was good, He therefore saw it, and honoured it, and set His seal upon it; and consummated²⁷⁴⁵ the goodness of His works by His vouchsafing to them that contemplation. Thus God blessed what He made good, in order that He might commend Himself to you as whole and perfect, good both in word and act.²⁷⁴⁶ As yet the Word knew no malediction, because He was a stranger to malefaction.²⁷⁴⁷ We shall see what reasons required this also of God. Meanwhile the world consisted of all things good, plainly foreshowing how much good was preparing for him for whom all this was provided. Who indeed was so worthy of dwelling amongst the works of God, as he who was His own image and likeness? That image was wrought out by a goodness even more operative than its wont,²⁷⁴⁸ with no imperious word, but with friendly hand preceded by an almost affable²⁷⁴⁹ utterance: "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness."²⁷⁵⁰ Goodness spake the word; Goodness formed man of the dust of the ground into so great a substance of the flesh, built up out of one material with so many qualities; Goodness breathed into him a soul, not dead but living. Goodness gave him dominion²⁷⁵¹ over all things, which he was to enjoy and rule over, and even give names to. In addition to this, Goodness annexed pleasures²⁷⁵² to man so that, while master of the whole world,²⁷⁵³ he might tarry among higher delights, being translated into paradise, out of the world into the Church.²⁷⁵⁴ The self-same Goodness provided also a help meet for him, that there might be nothing in his lot that was not good. For, said He, that the man be alone is not good.²⁷⁵⁵ He knew full well what a blessing to him would be the sex of Mary,²⁷⁵⁶ and also of the Church. The law, however, which you find fault with,²⁷⁵⁷ and wrest into a subject of contention, was imposed on man by Goodness, aiming at his happiness, that he might cleave to God, and so not show himself an abject creature rather than a free one, nor reduce himself to the level of the other animals, his subjects, which were free from God, and exempt from all tedious subjection;²⁷⁵⁸ but might, as the sole human being, boast that he alone was worthy of receiving laws from God; and as a rational being, capable of intelligence and knowledge, be restrained within the bounds of rational liberty, subject to Him who had subjected all things unto him. To secure the observance of this law, Goodness likewise took counsel by help of this sanction: "In the day that thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die."²⁷⁵⁹ For it was a most benignant act of His thus to point out the issues of transgression, lest ignorance of the danger should encourage a neglect of obedience. Now, since²⁷⁶⁰ it was given as a reason previous to the imposition of the law, it also amounted to a motive for subsequently observing it, that a penalty was annexed to its transgression; a penalty, indeed, which He who proposed it was still unwilling that it should be incurred. Learn then the goodness of our God amidst these things and up to this point; learn it from His excellent works, from His kindly blessings, from His indulgent bounties, from His gracious providences, from His laws and warnings, so good and merciful.

Chapter V.—Marcion's Cavils Considered. His Objection Refuted, I.e., Man's Fall Showed Failure in God. The Perfection of Man's Being Lay in His Liberty, Which God Purposely Bestowed on Him. The Fall Imputable to Man's Own Choice.

Now then, ye dogs, whom the apostle puts outside,²⁷⁶¹ and who yelp at the God of truth, let us come to your various questions. These are the bones of contention, which you are perpetually gnawing! If God is good, and prescient of the future, and able to avert evil, why did He permit man, the very image and likeness of Himself, and, by the origin of his soul, His own substance too, to be deceived by the devil, and fall from obedience of the law into death? For if He had been good, and so unwilling that such a catastrophe should happen, and prescient, so as not to be ignorant of what was to come to pass, and powerful enough to hinder its occurrence, that issue would never have come about, which should be impossible under these three conditions of the divine greatness. Since, however, it has occurred, the contrary proposition is most certainly true, that God must be deemed neither good, nor prescient, nor powerful. For as no such issue could have happened had God been such as He is reputed—good, and prescient, and mighty—so has this issue actually happened, because He is not such a God. In reply, we must first vindicate those attributes in the Creator which are called in question—namely, His goodness and foreknowledge, and power. But I shall not linger long over this point²⁷⁶² for Christ's own definition²⁷⁶³ comes to our aid at once. From works must proofs be obtained. The Creator's works testify at once to His goodness, since they are good, as we have shown, and to His power, since they are mighty, and spring indeed out of nothing. And even if they were made out of some (previous) matter, as some²⁷⁶⁴ will have it, they are even thus out of nothing, because they were not what they are. In short, both they are great because they are good; and²⁷⁶⁵ God is likewise mighty, because all things are His own, whence He is almighty. But what shall I say of His prescience, which has for its witnesses as many prophets as it inspired? After all,²⁷⁶⁶ what title to prescience do we look for in the Author of the universe, since it was by this very attribute that He foreknew all things when He appointed them their places, and appointed them their places when He foreknew them? There is sin itself. If He had not foreknown this, He would not have proclaimed a caution against it under the penalty of death. Now if there were in God such attributes as must have rendered it both impossible and improper for any evil to have happened to man,²⁷⁶⁷ and yet evil did occur, let us consider man's condition also—whether it were not, in fact, rather the cause why that came to pass which could not have happened through God. I find, then, that man was by God constituted free, master of his own will and power; indicating the presence of God's image and likeness in him by nothing so well as by this constitution of his nature. For it was not by his face, and by the lineaments of his body, though they were so varied in his human nature, that he expressed his likeness to the form of God; but he showed his stamp²⁷⁶⁸ in that essence which he derived from God Himself (that is, the spiritual,²⁷⁶⁹ which answered to the form of God), and in the freedom and power of his will. This his state was confirmed even by the very law which God then imposed upon him. For a law would not be imposed upon one who had it not in his power to render that obedience which is due to law; nor again, would the penalty of death be threatened against sin, if a contempt of the law were impossible to man in the liberty of his will. So in the Creator's subsequent laws also you will find, when He sets before man good and evil, life and death, that the entire course of discipline is arranged in precepts by God's calling men from sin, and threatening and exhorting them; and this on no other ground than²⁷⁷⁰ that man is free, with a will either for obedience or resistance.

Chapter VI.—This Liberty Vindicated in Respect of Its Original Creation; Suitable Also for Exhibiting the Goodness and the Purpose of God. Reward and Punishment Impossible If Man Were Good or Evil Through Necessity and Not Choice.

But although we shall be understood, from our argument, to be only so affirming man's unshackled power over his will, that what happens to him should be laid to his own charge, and not to God's, yet that you may not object, even now, that he ought not to have been so constituted, since his liberty and power of will might turn out to be injurious, I will first of all maintain that he was rightly so constituted, that I may with the greater confidence commend both his actual constitution, and the additional fact of its being worthy of the Divine Being; the cause which led to man's being created with such a constitution being shown to be the better one. Moreover, man thus constituted will be protected by both the goodness of God and by His purpose,²⁷⁷¹ both of which are always found in concert in our God. For His purpose is no purpose without goodness; nor is His goodness goodness without a purpose, except forsooth in the case of Marcion's god, who is purposelessly²⁷⁷² good, as we have shown.²⁷⁷³ Well, then, it was proper that God should be known; it was no doubt²⁷⁷⁴ a good and reasonable²⁷⁷⁵ thing. Proper also was it that there should be something worthy of knowing God. What could be found so worthy as the image and likeness of God? This also was undoubtedly good and reasonable. Therefore it was proper that (he who is) the image and likeness of God should be formed with a free will and a mastery of himself;²⁷⁷⁶ so that this very thing—namely, freedom of will and self-command—might be reckoned as the image and likeness of God in him. For this purpose such an essence²⁷⁷⁷ was adapted²⁷⁷⁸ to man as suited this character,²⁷⁷⁹ even the afflatus of the Deity, Himself free and uncontrolled.²⁷⁸⁰ But if you will take some other view of the case,²⁷⁸¹ how came it to pass²⁷⁸² that man, when in possession of the whole world, did not above all things reign in self-possession²⁷⁸³—a master over others, a slave to himself? The goodness of God, then, you can learn from His gracious gift²⁷⁸⁴ to man, and His purpose from His disposal of all things.²⁷⁸⁵ At present, let God's goodness alone occupy our attention, that which gave so large a gift to man, even the liberty of his will. God's purpose claims some other opportunity of treatment, offering as it does instruction of like import. Now, God alone is good by nature. For He, who has that which is without beginning, has it not by creation,²⁷⁸⁶ but by nature. Man, however, who exists entirely by creation, having a beginning, along with that beginning obtained the form in which he exists; and thus he is not by nature disposed to good, but by creation, not having it as his own attribute to be good, because, (as we have said,) it is not by nature, but by creation, that he is disposed to good, according to the appointment of his good Creator, even the Author of all good. In order, therefore, that man might have a goodness of his own,²⁷⁸⁷ bestowed²⁷⁸⁸ on him by God, and there might be henceforth in man a property, and in a certain sense a natural attribute of goodness, there was assigned to him in the constitution of his nature, as a formal witness²⁷⁸⁹ of the goodness which God bestowed upon him, freedom and power of the will, such as should cause good to be performed spontaneously by man, as a property of his own, on the ground that no less than this²⁷⁹⁰ would be required in the matter of a goodness which was to be voluntarily exercised by him, that is to say, by the liberty of his will, without either favour or servility to the constitution of his nature, so that man should be good²⁷⁹¹ just up to this point,²⁷⁹² if he should display his goodness in accordance with his natural constitution indeed, but still as the result of his will, as a property of his nature; and, by a similar exercise of volition,²⁷⁹³ should show himself to be too strong²⁷⁹⁴ in defence against evil also (for even this God, of course, foresaw), being free, and master of himself; because, if he were wanting in this prerogative of self-mastery, so as to perform even good by necessity and not will, he would, in the helplessness of his servitude, become subject to the usurpation of evil, a slave as much to evil as to good. Entire freedom of will, therefore, was conferred upon him in both tendencies; so that, as master of himself, he might constantly encounter good by spontaneous observance of it, and evil by its spontaneous avoidance; because, were man even otherwise circumstanced, it was yet his bounden duty, in the judgment of God, to do justice according to the motions²⁷⁹⁵ of his will regarded, of course, as free. But the reward neither of good nor of evil could be paid to the man who should be found to have been either good or evil through necessity and not choice. In this really lay²⁷⁹⁶ the law which did not exclude, but rather prove, human liberty by a spontaneous rendering of obedience, or a spontaneous commission of iniquity; so patent was the liberty of man's will for either issue. Since, therefore, both the goodness and purpose of God are²⁷⁹⁷ discovered in the gift to man of freedom in his will, it is not right, after ignoring the original definition of goodness and purpose which it was necessary to determine previous to any discussion of the subject, on subsequent facts to presume to say that God ought not in such a way to have formed man, because the issue was other than what was assumed to be²⁷⁹⁸ proper for God. We ought rather,²⁷⁹⁹ after duly considering that it behoved God so to create man, to leave this consideration unimpaired, and to survey the other aspects of the case. It is, no doubt, an easy process for persons who take offence at the fall of man, before they have looked into the facts of his creation, to impute the blame of what happened to the Creator, without any examination of His purpose. To conclude: the goodness of God, then fully considered from the beginning of His works, will be enough to convince us that nothing evil could possibly have come forth from God; and the liberty of man will, after a second thought,²⁸⁰⁰ show us that it alone is chargeable with the fault which itself committed.

Chapter VII.—If God Had Anyhow Checked Man's Liberty, Marcion Would Have Been Ready with Another and Opposite Cavil. Man's Fall Foreseen by God. Provision Made for It Remedially and Consistently with His Truth and Goodness.

By such a conclusion all is reserved²⁸⁰¹ unimpaired to God; both His natural goodness, and the purposes of His governance and foreknowledge, and the abundance of His power. You ought, however, to deduct from God's attributes both His supreme earnestness of purpose²⁸⁰² and most excellent truth in His whole creation, if you would cease to inquire whether anything could have happened against the will of God. For, while holding this earnestness and truth of the good God, which are indeed²⁸⁰³ capable of proof from the rational creation, you will not wonder at the fact that God did not interfere to prevent the occurrence of what He wished not to happen, in order that He might keep from harm what He wished. For, since He had once for all allowed (and, as we have shown, worthily allowed) to man freedom of will and mastery of himself, surely He from His very authority in creation permitted these gifts to be enjoyed: to be enjoyed, too, so far as lay in Himself, according to His own character as God, that is, for good (for who would permit anything hostile to himself?); and, so far as lay in man, according to the impulses of his liberty (for who does not, when giving anything to any one to enjoy, accompany the gift with a permission to enjoy it with all his heart and will?). The necessary consequence,²⁸⁰⁴ therefore, was, that God must separate from the liberty which He had once for all bestowed upon man (in other words, keep within Himself), both His foreknowledge and power, through which He might have prevented man's falling into danger when attempting wrongly to enjoy his liberty. Now, if He had interposed, He would have rescinded the liberty of man's will, which He had permitted with set purpose, and in goodness. But, suppose God had interposed; suppose Him to have abrogated man's liberty, by warning him from the tree, and keeping off the subtle serpent from his interview with the woman; would not Marcion then exclaim, What a frivolous, unstable, and faithless Lord, cancelling the gifts He had bestowed! Why did He allow any liberty of will, if He afterwards withdrew it? Why withdraw it after allowing it? Let Him choose where to brand Himself with error, either in His original constitution of man, or in His subsequent abrogation thereof! If He had checked (man's freedom), would He not then seem to have been rather deceived, through want of foresight into the future? But in giving it full scope, who would not say that He did so in ignorance of the issue of things? God, however, did foreknow that man would make a bad use of his created constitution; and yet what can be so worthy of God as His earnestness of purpose, and the truth of His created works, be they what they may? Man must see, if he failed to make the most of²⁸⁰⁵ the good gift he had received, how that he was himself guilty in respect of the law which he did not choose to keep, and not that the Lawgiver was committing a fraud against His own law, by not permitting its injunctions to be fulfilled. Whenever you are inclined to indulge in such censure²⁸⁰⁶ (and it is the most becoming for you) against the Creator, recall gently to your mind in His behalf²⁸⁰⁷ His earnestness, and endurance, and truth, in having given completeness²⁸⁰⁸ to His creatures both as rational and good.