What about the seventh day?
When it is said that God rested on the seventh day of all his works, we shouldn't understand this in a childish fashion, as if work were a toil to God; it means the rest of them, which believe in him. It is a rest both in God, by them that in this life first in part have come near to him through belief, and caused by God.
Wednesday, May 18, 2011
II.1 chapter 7
What were these days of creation like?
God created the light on the first day, and made the movement of it that made morning and evening. How this exactly happened we cannot say. We can however understand allegorical about it that the knowledge of God in comparison with the knowledge of us is like the light of the morning to the evening. (Our knowledge is not the opposite, like the night to the morning, but a modification of it.) And when our knowledge is directed to praise and love of the Creator, it will return to the light of the morning.
In this way we can see the first day as the return to the knowledge of God; the second to the knowledge of the heaven, the third to the knowledge of the earth, the fourth to the knowledge of the heavenly lights, the fifth to the knowledge of the fishes and birds, the sixth to the knowledge of man.
God created the light on the first day, and made the movement of it that made morning and evening. How this exactly happened we cannot say. We can however understand allegorical about it that the knowledge of God in comparison with the knowledge of us is like the light of the morning to the evening. (Our knowledge is not the opposite, like the night to the morning, but a modification of it.) And when our knowledge is directed to praise and love of the Creator, it will return to the light of the morning.
In this way we can see the first day as the return to the knowledge of God; the second to the knowledge of the heaven, the third to the knowledge of the earth, the fourth to the knowledge of the heavenly lights, the fifth to the knowledge of the fishes and birds, the sixth to the knowledge of man.
II.1 chapter 6
But how are time and eternity related?
Time is through movement. Therefore there was no time before God made the world, but time was created with the world. This time came to being in the first six or seven days of creation, in which there is said to be morning and evening.
Time is through movement. Therefore there was no time before God made the world, but time was created with the world. This time came to being in the first six or seven days of creation, in which there is said to be morning and evening.
II.1 chapter 5
Another answer to them who say that it is impossible that an unchangeable and eternal God created the world at a particular, unique time: the same vain thesis could be made about the particular place in which the world was made: why was it created at this place, and not elsewhere? Because we say that God is (incorporeal) present everywhere, just like he is eternal, and not bound to this particular place.
Therefore if doubting that the world could be created at a particular place by the omnipresent God is as futile as doubting that the world could be created at a particular time by the eternal God.
Therefore if doubting that the world could be created at a particular place by the omnipresent God is as futile as doubting that the world could be created at a particular time by the eternal God.
II.1 chapter 4
What does the Bible say about God and the world?
The Bible tells us that God has made the world. The prophet who said that was not a witness of those things, however; but the Wisdom of God, through which everything is made, and who is in the heart of who believes, spoke within, without sound, to the prophets of his works.
We know that there is an alternative for the theory of creation: the theory of eternal repetition of what is in the world, or one could call that eternal creation. How could an unchangeable eternal God make the world at a particular time: how can such a unique (non-repeated) change be possible, if his will never changes (as Epicurus points out)?
First, it is hard to deny that God created the world, because the world is that beautiful, that it cannot exist through something else than God, who has unutterable and invisible greatness, and is unutterable and invisible beauty too.
Second, it is anyway impossible to deny all unique (non-repeated) changes, and say every change is repeated from eternity; because then there never could be any everlasting and complete happiness (but only recurring periods of happiness and unhappiness).
We therefore believe the unchangeable and eternal God did not change his will when making the world.
The Bible tells us that God has made the world. The prophet who said that was not a witness of those things, however; but the Wisdom of God, through which everything is made, and who is in the heart of who believes, spoke within, without sound, to the prophets of his works.
We know that there is an alternative for the theory of creation: the theory of eternal repetition of what is in the world, or one could call that eternal creation. How could an unchangeable eternal God make the world at a particular time: how can such a unique (non-repeated) change be possible, if his will never changes (as Epicurus points out)?
First, it is hard to deny that God created the world, because the world is that beautiful, that it cannot exist through something else than God, who has unutterable and invisible greatness, and is unutterable and invisible beauty too.
Second, it is anyway impossible to deny all unique (non-repeated) changes, and say every change is repeated from eternity; because then there never could be any everlasting and complete happiness (but only recurring periods of happiness and unhappiness).
We therefore believe the unchangeable and eternal God did not change his will when making the world.
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