The Creed: The Father

I believe in God

The Father Almighty

Maker of Heaven and Earth

“I believe in God”



Irenaeus, Against Heresies 2.13.3

The transcendence of God

God is not as men are; and that his thoughts are not like the thoughts of men (Isa. 55:8). For the Father of all is at a vast distance from those affections and passions which operate among men. He is a simple, uncompounded Being, without diverse members, and altogether like, and equal to himself, since he is wholly understanding, and wholly spirit, and wholly thought, and wholly intelligence, and wholly reason, and wholly hearing, and wholly seeing, and wholly light, and the whole source of all that is good— even as the religious and pious are wont to speak concerning God.

Origen, On First Principles 1.1.1,5–6

“Divinity” must be incorporeal, incomprehensible, immeasurable

1. I know that some people will say, even according to our Scriptures, that God is a body. For in the writings of Moses they find it said, Our God is a consuming fire (Heb. 12:29), and in the Gospel of John, God is a spirit and they who worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth (John 4:24). Fire and spirit, according to them, are to be regarded as nothing else than a body. Now, I should like to ask these persons what they have to say about that passage where it is declared that God is light—as John writes in his Epistle, God is light, and in him there is no darkness at all (1 John 1:5). Truly, he is that light which illuminates the whole understanding of those who are capable of receiving truth, as is said in the thirty-sixth Psalm, In your light we shall see light (Ps. 36:9).

5. Having refuted, then, as well as we could, every notion which might suggest that we were to think of God as in any degree corporeal, we go on to say that, according to strict truth, that God is incomprehensible and incapable of being measured. For whatever be the knowledge by which we are able to obtain of God, either by perception or reflection, we must of necessity believe that he is by many degrees far better than what we perceive him to be. For, as if we were to see any one unable to bear a spark of light, or the flame of a very small lamp, and were desirous to acquaint such a one, whose vision could not admit a greater degree of light than what we have stated, with the brightness and splendor of the sun, would it not be necessary to tell him that the splendor of the sun was unspeakably and incalculably better and more glorious than all this light which he saw?

6. But it will not appear absurd if we employ another analogy to make the matter clearer. Our eyes frequently cannot look upon the nature of the light itself—that is, upon the substance of the sun. But when we behold its splendor or its rays pouring in, perhaps, through a window or a some small opening that admits light, we get a sense of how great is the supply and source of the light of the body. So, in like manner, the works of Divine Providence and the plan of this whole world are like rays, as it were, of the nature of God, in comparison with his real substance and being. Therefore, as our understanding is unable by itself to behold God himself as he is, it knows the Father of the world from the beauty of his works and the comeliness of his creatures. God, therefore, is not to be thought of as being either a body or as existing in a body, but as an uncompounded intellectual nature, admitting within himself no addition of any kind. We cannot believe believe him to have within himself a “greater” or a “lesser.” He is in all parts Μονάς, and, so to speak, ῾Ενάς, and is the mind and source from which all intellectual nature or mind takes its beginning.

Gregory of Nyssa, Life of Moses 2.23–5

Truth as the apprehension of Being

In my view the definition of truth is this: not to have a mistaken apprehension of Being. Falsehood is a kind of impression which arises in the understanding about nonbeing: as though what does not exist does, in fact, exist. But truth is the sure apprehension of real Being. So, whoever applies himself in quietness to higher philosophical matters over a long period of time will barely apprehend what true Being is, that is, what possesses existence in its own nature, and what nonbeing is, that is, what is existence only in appearance, with no selfsubsisting nature. . . . None of those things which are apprehended by sense perception and contemplated by the understanding really subsists, but the transcendent essence and cause of the universe, on which everything depends, alone subsist. For even if the understanding looks upon any other existing things, reason observes in absolutely none of them the self-sufficiency by which they could exist without participating in true Being. On the other hand, that which is always the same, neither increasing nor diminishing, immutable to all change whether to better or to worse (for it is far removed from the inferior and it has no superior), standing in need of nothing else, alone desirable, participated in by all but not lessened by their participation—this is truly real Being. And the apprehension of it is the knowledge of truth. (Trans. Abraham J. Malherbe and Everett Ferguson, Gregory of Nyssa: The Life of Moses (New York: Paulist Press, 1978), 60

Gregory of Nyssa, Catechetical Oration Prol.4-8

A hypothetical argument against a polytheist that true divinity must be one

Therefore, when the discussion is with a Hellenist, it would be well to begin the argument in this way: Does he think God exists, or does he agree with the view of atheists? If he says God does not exist, then from the skillful and wise arrangement of the world he can be led to acknowledge the existence of some power which is manifested by it and which transcends the universe.

But if he does not doubt God’s existence and is carried away by ideas of a plurality of gods, we should use with him some such argument as follows: Does he think the divine is perfect or imperfect? If, as he probably will, he testifies to the perfection of the divine nature, we must require him to acknowledge that this perfection extends to every aspect of divinity contemplated, so that the divine may not be regarded as a mixture of opposites, of defect and perfection. Now, whether it be with respect to power, or the idea of goodness, or wisdom or incorruption or eternity or any other relevant attribute of God, he will agree, as a reasonable inference, that we must think of the divine nature as perfect in every case.

Once this is granted, it would not be difficult to bring round his thinking … to the acknowledgment of a single deity. … Indeed, because the idea of God is one and the same and no particularity can reasonably be discovered in any respect, the erroneous notion of a plurality of gods must of necessity give way to the acknowledgment of a single deity. For he cannot find a difference with respect to greater or less, since the idea of perfection does not admit of “less.” Nor with respect to worse or better, since he would not have the conception of God where the term “worse” was not excluded. Nor in respect to ancient and modern, since what does not always exist is alien to the idea of God.

If, then, goodness, righteousness, wisdom, and power are equally ascribed [to the Deity], and incorruption, eternity, and every thought compatible with religion are similarly acknowledged, all difference is in every way excluded. Excluded, too, from his doctrine is a plurality of gods, for the identity throughout brings him round to the conviction of the unity.

Augustine, On the Nature of the Good 1, 19

“From” God vs. “of” God: The immutable God and mutable creation

1. The highest good—the good than which there is no higher—is God. Consequently, he is unchangeable good, hence truly eternal and truly immortal. All other good things are only from him, not of him. For what is of him is himself. And consequently, if he alone is unchangeable, then all things that he has made are changeable, since he has made them out of nothing. For he is so omnipotent, that he is able to make good things—great and small, celestial and terrestrial, spiritual and corporeal—out of nothing, that is, out of what is absolutely non-existent. But because he is also just, he has not put those things that he has made out of nothing on an equality with that which he begot out of himself. Therefore no good things—whether great or small, through whatever gradations of things—can exist except from God. But since every nature, so far as it is nature, is good, it follows that no nature can exist save from the most high and true God.

19. Magnificently and divinely, therefore, our God said to his servant: “I am that I am” and “You shall say to the children of Israel, he who is sent me to you” (Ex. 3:14). For he truly exists because he is unchangeable. For every change makes what was not into something that exists. Therefore, the one who truly exists is unchangeable. But all other things that were made by him have received being from him—each in its own measure. To him who is highest, therefore, nothing can be contrary, except what does not exist. Consequently, just as everything that is good has its being from him, so also everything that exists by nature does so from Him—for everything that exists by nature is good. Thus every nature is good, and everything good is from God; therefore every nature is from God.

Peter Chrysologus, Sermons 57 and 61

On the rejection of the old gods

“I believe in God, the Father Almighty.” That you have believed in God is something that you rightly confess today, as you rejoice over the fact that you have fled from gods and goddesses of different sex—bewildering in their number, popular because mob-like, base in their lineage, vile in their reputation, greatest in their wickedness, foremost in sin, and outstanding in evil-doing, convicted of all this even by their very countenance sculptured on the tombs of their devotees. Your joy is proper, because to have such beings even as one's servants is wretched, painful, and unfortunate. Yet, up to the present, you endured them as your masters.

On believing that God is requires moderation

“I believe in God, the Father Almighty.” He who believes in God should not rashly try to fathom Him. It is enough to know the fact that God is. He who inquires whence He is, how great He is, and what God is finds himself in ignorance. The sun blacks out an imprudent gazing, and his unpermitted approach to God becomes a blinded one. He who desires to see God should learn how to observe moderation in his gazing. If one wants to know his own God, let him not know the gods of pagans. He who calls them gods contradicts God. To serve the one God is liberty; but it is bondage to serve the many gods. (FC 17:112)

Pseudo-Dionysius, The Divine Names 4

God is not a being among beings but the essence of being for the things that have being

The God who is (Ex. 3:14) transcends everything by virtue of his power. He is the substantive cause and maker of being, subsistence, of existence, of substance, and of nature. He is the Source and the measure of the ages. He is the reality beneath time and the eternity beyond being. He is the time within which things happen. He is being for whatever is. He is coming-to-be amid whatever happens. From him who is come eternity, essence, and being come time, genesis, and becoming. He is the being immanent in and underlying the things which are, however they are. For God is not some kind of being. No. But in a way that is simple and indefinable he gathers into himself and anticipates every existence. . . . He was not. He will not be. He did not come to be. He is not in the midst of becoming. He will not come to be. No. He is not. Rather, he is the essence of being for the things that have being. Not only things that are but also the essence of what they are come from who precedes the ages. For he is the age of ages, the predecessor of the ages (Psalm 55:19, LXX). (trans. Lubheid, 98, alt)

“The Father Almighty”  

Origen of Alexandria, On First Principles 1.2.10

The Father cannot be “almighty” unless there is that over which he has power; that is, he cannot be a Father unless there is a Son in and by whom everything has been created

Let us now examine the saying thatWisdom is the emanation [aporroia] of the purest glory of the Almighty (Wis. 7:25-26). Let us first consider what the glory of the Almighty is, and then we shall understand what is its emanation. In the same way that no one can be a father if there is no son, nor can one be a lord if he owns neither possessions nor a slave, so even God cannot be called ‘Almighty’ unless there exist those over whom he can exercise his power; and, therefore, that God may be shown to be almighty, it is necessary that all things exist. For if any one would have it that some ages or periods, or whatever else he likes to call them, passed away, ages when those things that have been made had not yet been made, he would undoubtedly prove that during those ages or periods God was not almighty but became almighty afterwards, from the time when he began to have those over whom he could exercise power; and in this way he will appear to have received a certain increase and to have come from a lower to a higher state, since it is not doubted that it is better for him to be almighty than not to be so. . . . But if there is never a ‘when’ when he was not almighty, by necessity those things must also subsist by which he is called the Almighty, and he must always have had those over whom he exercised power and which were governed by him as king or prince. . . .

But even now, . . . I think it necessary to give a warning, since the question before us concerning Wisdom is how Wisdom is the emanation of the purest glory of the Almighty, lest anyone should consider that the title Almighty is anterior in God to the birth of Wisdom, through whom he is called Father, since it is said that Wisdom, who is teh Son of God, is the emanation of the purest glory of the Almighty. Let him who would think like this hear what the Scriptures clearly proclaim, saying, In Wisdom have you made all things (Ps. 103:24), and the Gospel teaches, that All things were made by him and without nothing was made (John 1:3), and let him understand from this that the title of Almighty cannot be older in God than that of Father, for it is through the Son that the Father is almighty. trans. Behr [OUP 2019, Reader’s Edition], 29-30, alt.)

Cyril of Jerusalem, Catechetical Lectures 7.4–5

The name “Father” implies a Son

4. The very mention of the name of the Father suggests the thought of the Son, just as, in turn, the mention of Son implies the thought of the Father. For, if He is a Father, He is surely Father of a Son. Thus we say: “In One God, Father Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth, of all things visible and invisible”; and add: “And in one Lord Jesus Christ.” That no one may irreverently suppose that the Only­-begotten is second in rank to heaven and earth, before naming these we named God Father, that the thought of Father might suggest the Son; for between Son and Father there is no being whatsoever. 

5. Though God, improperly speaking, is Father of many things, by nature and in truth He is Father of One only, the Only­-begotten Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. He did not attain Fatherhood in the course of time, but He is eternally Father of the Only­-begotten. Not that He was Sonless before and afterwards became a Father by a change of purpose, but before all substance and all intelligence, before times and all the ages, God has the prerogative of Father, exalting Himself in this dignity before all others. He did not become a Father by passion, or from union, or in ignorance, or by emanation, or diminution or alteration; for “every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of Lights, with whom there is no change, nor shadow of alteration.” A perfect Father, He begot a perfect Son, delivering all things to Him whom He begot.

Cyril of Jerusalem, Catechetical Lectures 8.4

Nothing is excluded from God’s dominion

The Holy Scripture and the true doctrine know but One God, who has dominion over all things, yet tolerates many things because He so wills. For He rules over idolaters, but out of forbearance endures them; He rules over the heretics also, who reject Him, but puts up with them patiently. He rules over the devil, but tolerates him in His long­-suffering; but it is not for want of power, as though defeated, that he endures him, for “he is the beginning of the Lord’s creation, made to be mocked,” not by Himself, for that would be beneath His dignity, but “by the angels” who were made by Him. He has allowed the devil to live for two reasons, that he might suffer greater shame by defeat, and that men might be crowned with victory. O all­-wise providence of God which takes wicked purpose as a basis of salvation for the faithful! . . .

Nothing, therefore, is excluded from the dominion of God, for Scripture says of Him: “All things serve you” (Ps. 118:91). All things indeed are His servants; but one, His Only Son, and one, His Holy Spirit, are outside all these; and all things that serve Him serve their Lord through the One Son in the Holy Spirit. God, then, rules over all things, and in His forbearance endures even murderers and robbers and fornicators, having determined a fixed time for requiting each, that they who, granted a long reprieve, remain impenitent may suffer the greater condemnation. There are kings of men who reign upon the earth, yet not without power from on high.

For of Him and in Him is the fairest figure of all things, unchangeable; and therefore He Himself is One, who communicates to everything its possibilities, not only that it be beautiful actually, but also that it be capable of being beautiful. For which reason we do most right to believe that God made all things of nothing. For, even although the world was made of some sort of material, this self-same material itself was made of nothing; so that, in accordance with the most orderly gift of God, there was to enter first the capacity of taking forms, and then that all things should be formed which have been formed. This, however, we have said, in order that no one might suppose that the utterances of the divine Scriptures are contrary the one to the other, in so far as it is written at once that God made all things of nothing, and that the world was made of matter without form.

Augustine, On Faith and the Creed 2

God is not truly almighty if he fashioned the world out of a nature that already existed

Some people have tried to demonstrate that God the Father is not Almighty. Not that they have been bold enough to say this outright, but their teachings can convict them of entertaining such a notion. For when they postulate that there is a nature that God Almighty did not create and of which he fashioned this world—a world that they admit has been disposed in beauty—they deny that God is truly almighty…. [They reason] from their carnal familiarity with the sight of craftsmen and house-builders, and artisans of all descriptions, who have no power to make good the effect of their own art unless they get the help of materials already prepared. And so these parties in like manner understand the Maker of the world not to be almighty, if thus he could not fashion the said world without the help of some other nature, not framed by himself, which he had to use as his materials.

Augustine, Sermon on the Creed to Catechumens 2 (s. 398.2)

How is God Almighty (omnipotent) if he cannot sin, lie, be deceived, etc.?

So this is what you have already received, and thought about, and held onto after thinking about it, so that you can say, I believe in God the Father almighty. God is almighty; and while he is almighty, he is unable to die, unable to be deceived, unable to lie, and as the apostle says, he cannot deny himself (2 Tm 2:13). How many things he is unable to do, and he is almighty! And that’s why he is almighty, because he cannot do these things. I mean, if he could die, he wouldn’t be almighty; if he could lie, could be deceived, could deceive, could act unjustly, he wouldn’t be almighty, because if it were in him to do that sort of thing, he wouldn’t be fit to be almighty. Of course our almighty Father cannot sin. He does whatever he wills (Ps 115:3); that is being almighty, that is om­nipotence. He does whatever he wills in a good way, whatever he wills justly; but anything that is done badly, he doesn't will. Nobody can oppose the almighty and stop him doing what he will. (WSA 3/10:445-46)

Rufinus of Aquileia, Commentary on the Creed 4

The term Father is mysterious, implying an eternal Son, and so requires a careful approach

Father is a word expressive of a secret and ineffable mystery. When you hear the word God, you must understand a substance without beginning or end, simple, uncompounded, invisible, incorporeal, ineffable, inappreciable—a substance in which there nothing accidental or creaturely. For He is without cause who is absolutely the cause of all things. When you hear the word Father, you must understand by this the Father of a Son, which Son is the image of the aforesaid substance. For as no one is called Lord unless he have a possession or a servant whose lord he is, and as no one is called master unless he have a disciple, so no one can possibly be called father unless he have a son. This very name of Father, therefore, shows plainly that, together with the Father there subsists a Son also.

But I would not have you discuss how God the Father begot the Son, nor intrude too curiously into the profound mystery. There is a danger that by prying too eagerly into the brightness of light inaccessible, you should lose the faint glimpse which, by the gift of God, has been vouchsafed to mortals. Or, if you suppose that this is a subject to be investigated with all possible scrutiny, first propose to yourself questions which concern ourselves, and then, if you are able to deal satisfactorily with them, speed on from earthly things to heavenly, from visible to invisible. Determine first, if you can, how the mind within you generates a word and what is the spirit of the memory that is in it. Then consider how these, though diverse in reality and in operation, are yet one in substance or nature—how they proceed from the mind yet never separated from it. And if these, though they are in us and in the substance of our own soul, yet seem to be hidden from us in proportion as they are invisible to bodily sight, let us turn our attention to things more open to view. How does a spring generate a river from itself? By what spirit is it borne into a rapidly flowing stream? How does happen that, while the river and the spring are one and inseparable, yet neither can the river be understood to be, or can be called, the spring, nor the spring the river, and yet he who has seen the river has seen the spring also? Exercise yourself first in explaining these, and explain, if you are able, things within your grasp, and then you may come to loftier matters.

Do not think, however, that I would have you ascend all at once from earth to heaven: I would first … draw your attention to the firmament that our physical eyes behold. Investigate, if you can, the nature of this visible light—how that celestial fire generates from itself the brightness of light and how it also produces heat. Then explain how these are three in reality yet one in substance. And if you are capable of investigating each of these, even then you must acknowledge that the mystery of the divine generation is by so much the more diverse and the more transcendent as the Creator is more powerful than the creatures, as the artificer is more excellent than his work, as he who ever is more noble than that which had its beginning out of nothing. (NPNF, alt.)

Peter Chrysologus, Sermon 57, 60.4

The term Father implies always having a Son, since divinity does not allow stages in time

57. Rejoice that you have turned to the one, true, living, and only but not lonely God, by saying: “I believe in God the Father.” The man who names him Father should already acknowledge the Son. For he who has wished to be called a Father, to be denoted as a Father, is kindly making clear that he has a Son, whom he did not receive at any point of time, or beget in time, or have in his care merely for a time. Divinity does not take a beginning, or admit an end, or any succession; it is incapable of any waning. Not amid any pains does God bring forth his Son; he manifests that because of his powers the Son is existent. He does not make as something outside himself that Being which is from himself, but he generates that Being; while the Being is inside Himself, he discloses and reveals the fact. The Son has proceeded from the Father, but not withdrawn from him. Neither has he come forth from the Father as one destined to succeed the Father, but as one who will remain always in the Father.

Hear John’s words: He was in the beginning with God (John 1:2). And elsewhere John says: What was from the beginning. Assuredly, that which already was did not come by addition later on; clearly, that which was did not later take a beginning. I am the first, and I am the last, he says. He who is the first is not after someone else; he who is the last does not leave another behind him. When he utters those words, he does not exclude the Father, but he concludes that all things are in both himself and the Father. (FC 17:105-6)

60.4. He one who believes in the Father, professes that there is a Son. The one who believes in the Father and the Son is not to think of ages, nor to consider ranks, nor to make hypotheses about periods of time, nor to inquire into conception, nor to understand a birth. The one who believes in God has professed divine not human matters. But the heretic says: “How is he a Father if he does not precede? How is he a Son if he is not subsequent? How does the Begetter not provide a beginning? How does the Begotten not take his beginning from the Begetter? This is what reason teaches, this is what nature manifests.”

You are wrong, O heretic! This is what human reason holds, but it is not what divine reason holds. This is what worldly nature proposes, this is not what the divine nature disposes. Human frailty is conceived and conceives, it is produced and produces, it is begotten and begets, it has a beginning and transmits death, it receives and it gives back, and preserves in its offspring whatever pertains to its own condition and nature. God the Father, however, did not beget in time, because he does not know time; he who knows no beginning did not give a beginning; he did not transmit an end because he has no end; but he generated the Son from himself in such a way that everything that was in him was and remained in the Son. The honor of the Begotten is an honor for the Begetter; the perfection of the Begotten is the image of the Begetter; any diminution of the Begotten brings dishonor on the Begetter. (FC 109:232-33)

“Creator of Heaven and Earth”

Shepherd of Hermas, Mandate 1[26]:1-2

Early second-century statement of creation ex nihilo; God contains all but is uncontained

First of all, believe that God is One, even he who created all things and set them in order, and brought all things from non-existence into being, who contains all things, being alone uncontainable. Believe him therefore, and fear him, and in this fear be continent. Keep these things, and thou shalt cast off all wickedness from thyself, and shalt clothe thyself with every excellence of righteousness, and shalt live unto God, if thou keep this commandment. [Lightfoot trans., alt.)

Theophilus, To Autolychus 2.10

Creation out of nothing

 [The prophets] have taught us that [God] made all things out of those that are not. For nothing was coeval with God; rather, being his own place and in need of nothing and existing before the ages he wished to make humans so that he might be known to them. After all, it is that which is generated that is in need, whereas the ingenerate is in need of nothing . . . [quoting Gen. 1:1–2]. This is what the divine Scripture teaches at the outset, that matter is in some way generated, having been generated by God, and that from it God had made and fashioned the cosmos. (trans. Grant) 

Irenaeus, Demonstration of the Apostolic Preaching 4–5, 8

God as uncontained container of all; Creation by the Word and Spirit

4. For it is necessary that things that have come into being have received the origin of their being from some great cause; and the origin of all is God, for he himself was not made by anyone, but everything was made by him. And therefore it is proper, first of all, to believe that there is One God, the Father, who has created and fashioned all things, who made that which was not to be, who contains all and is alone uncontainable. Moreover, in this ‘all’ is our world, and in the world, man; thus this world was also created by God.

5. In this way, then, it is demonstrated that there is One God, the Father, uncreated, invisible, Creator of all, above whom there is no other God, and after whom there is no other God. And as God is verbal (logikós) therefore he made created things by the Word; and God is Spirit, so that He adorned all things by the Spirit, as the prophet also says, “By the Word of the Lord were the heavens established, and all their power by His Spirit” (Ps. 32:6). Thus, since the Word ‘establishes,’ that is, works bodily and confers existence, while the Spirit arranges and forms the various ‘powers,’ so rightly is the Son called Word and the Spirit the Wisdom of God.

Hence, his apostle Paul also well says, “One God, the Father, who is above all, and through all and in us all” (Eph. 4:6) because ‘above all’ is the Father, and ‘through all’ is the Word—since through Him everything was made by the Father—while ‘in us all’ is the Spirit, who cries “Abba, Father” (Gal. 4:6; Rom. 8:15) and forms man to the likeness of God. Thus, the Spirit demonstrates the Word, and because of this, the prophets announced the Son of God, while the Word articulates the Spirit, and therefore it is he himself who interprets the prophets and brings man to the Father.

The meaning of “most high,” “almighty,” and “lord — To Christians, God is Father; to Jews, Lord and Lawgiver; to the Gentiles, Creator and Almighty; to everyone, a Nourisher, Judge, and King

8. And the Father is called by the Spirit ‘Most High,’ and ‘Almighty’ and ‘Lord of Hosts’ that we may learn [that] the God, this one himself, he is the Maker of heaven and earth and the whole world, the Creator of angels and men, and the Lord of all, by whom all things exist, and from whom all things are nourished—merciful, compassionate, good, righteous, the God of all—both of the Jews and of the Gentiles and of the faithful.

However, to the faithful he is as Father, since ‘in the last times’ he opened the testament of the adoption as sons; while to the Jews he is as Lord and Lawgiver, since in the intervening period, when mankind had forgotten, abandoned and rebelled against God, he brought them into slavery by means of the Law, that they might learn that they have [as] Lord the Maker and Fashioner, who also bestows the breath of life, and to him we must offer worship by day and by night; and to the Gentiles he is as Creator and Almighty.

But for absolutely everyone he is the Nourisher and King and Judge, for no one shall escape his judgement, neither a Jew nor a Gentile, neither a sinful believer nor an angel; but those who, at this time, do not believe in his goodness, will know His power in the judgement, as the blessed Apostle says, “Not knowing that the goodness of God leads you to repentance, but, according to your hardness and impenitent heart, you treasure up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgement of God, who will render to each according to their works” (Rom. 2:4–6). This is he, who is called in the Law, “the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob—the God of the living” (Exod. 3:6; Matt. 22:32). Yet, nevertheless, the eminence and greatness of this same God are inexpressible. (Trans. John Behr, On the Apostolic Preaching, PPS 17 [Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1997] 42–43, 44–45.)

Athenagoras, On the Resurrection of the Dead 12

An argument for the resurrection based on God’s intention in creating humankind

The “argument from cause” [for the resurrection of the dead] will become clear if we consider whether man was made at random and in vain, or whether he was made for some purpose. And if he was made for some purpose, whether he would simply live and continue in the natural condition in which he was created, or for the use of something or someone else. And if with a view to use, whether for that of the Creator himself, or of some one of the beings who belong to him, and are by him deemed worthy of greater care …

God can neither have made man in vain, for he is wise, and no work of wisdom is in vain; nor for his own use, for he lacks nothing. But to a Being absolutely in need of nothing, no one of his works can contribute anything to his own use. Neither, moreover, did he make man for the sake of any of the other works that he has made. For nothing that is endowed with reason and judgment has been created, or is created, for the use of another, whether greater or less than itself, but for the sake of the life and continuance of the being itself so created. For reason cannot discover any use which might be deemed a cause for the creation of men, since immortals are free from want, and in need of no help from men in order to their existence; and irrational beings are by nature in a state of subjection, and perform those services for men for which each of them was intended, but are not intended in their turn to make use of men: for it neither was nor is right to lower that which rules and takes the lead to the use of the inferior, or to subject the rational to the irrational, which is not suited to rule.

Gregory of Nyssa, On the Making of Humankind 5.1, 16.2-18; 24

Humanity Images God in beauty, goodness, and virtue (5.1)

5.1. It is true, indeed, that the Divine beauty is not adorned with any shape or endowment of form, by any beauty of color, but is contemplated as excellence in unspeakable bliss. As then painters transfer human forms to their pictures by the means of certain colors, laying on their copy the proper and corresponding tints, so that the beauty of the original may be accurately transferred to the likeness, so I would have you understand that our Maker also, painting the portrait to resemble his own beauty, by the addition of virtues, as it were with colors, shows in us his own sovereignty: and manifold and varied are the tints, so to say, by which his true form is portrayed: not red, or white , or the blending of these, whatever it may be called, nor a touch of black that paints the eyebrow and the eye, and shades, by some combination, the depressions in the figure, and all such arts which the hands of painters contrive, but instead of these, purity, freedom from passion, blessedness, alienation from all evil, and all those attributes of the like kind which help to form in men the likeness of God: with such hues as these did the Maker of his own image mark our nature.

Humanity’s Greatness Consists in Being Made in the Image; definition of image (16.2-11)

16.2. In what then does the greatness of man consist, according to the doctrine of the Church? Not in his likeness to the created world, but in his being in the image of the nature of the Creator.

3. What therefore, you will perhaps say, is the definition of the image? How is the incorporeal likened to body? How is the temporal like the eternal? That which is mutable by change like to the immutable? That which is subject to passion and corruption to the impassible and incorruptible? That which constantly dwells with evil, and grows up with it, to that which is absolutely free from evil? There is a great difference between that which is conceived in the archetype, and a thing which has been made in its image: for the image is properly so called if it keeps its resemblance to the prototype; but if the imitation be perverted from its subject, the thing is something else, and no longer an image of the subject.

4. How then is man—this mortal, passible, shortlived being—the image of that nature which is immortal, pure, and everlasting? The true answer . . . perhaps only the Truth itself knows. But this is what we—tracing out the truth as far as we are capable by conjectures and inferences—think about the matter. The word of God does not lie when it says that man was made in the image of God, nor is the pitiable suffering of man’s nature like the blessedness of the impassible Life. For if any one were to compare our nature with God, one of two things would need to be allowed in order that the definition of the likeness may be apprehended in both cases in the same terms—either that the Deity is passible or that humanity is impassible. But if neither the Deity is passible nor our nature free from passion, what other account remains whereby we may say that the word of God speaks truly, which says that man was made in the image of God?

…

7. We must, then, examine the words carefully: for we find, if we do so, that that which was made in the image is one thing, and that which is now manifested in wretchedness is another. “God created man,” [Scripture] says; “in the image of God created he him” (Gen 1:27). There is [at this point] an end of the creation of that which was made in the image, but then [Scripture] resumes the account of creation, saying, “male and female created he them.” I presume that every one knows that this is a departure from the Prototype: for in Christ Jesus, as the apostle says, “there is neither male nor female” (Gal. 3:28). Yet the phrase declares that man is thus divided.

8. Thus the creation of our nature is in a sense twofold: one made like to God, one divided according to this distinction. For something like this the passage darkly conveys by its arrangement, where it first says, “God created man, in the image of God created He him” (Gen. 1:27), and then, adding to what has been said, “male and female created he them” (Gen. 1:27)— a thing that is alien from our conceptions of God.

9. I think that by these words Holy Scripture conveys to us a great and lofty doctrine; and the doctrine is this. While two natures—the Divine and incorporeal nature, and the irrational life of brutes—are separated from each other as extremes, human nature is the mean between them. For in the compound nature of man we may behold a part of each of the natures I have mentioned—of the Divine, the rational and intelligent element, which does not admit the distinction of male and female; of the irrational, our bodily form and structure, divided into male and female: for each of these elements is certainly to be found in all that partakes of human life. . . .

10. What, then, do we learn from this? . . . God is in his own nature all that which our mind can conceive of good—rather, transcending all good that we can conceive or comprehend. He creates man for no other reason than that he is good. Being [good], and having this as his reason for entering upon the creation of our nature, he would not exhibit the power of his goodness in an imperfect form—giving our nature some of the things at his disposal but grudging it a share in another. Rather, the perfect form of goodness is here seen by both bringing man into being from nothing and fully supplying him with all good gifts. But since the list of individual good gifts is a long one, it is out of the question to apprehend it numerically. The language of Scripture therefore expresses it concisely by a comprehensive phrase, in saying that man was made in the image of God: for this is the same as to say that he made human nature participant in all good. For if the Deity is the fullness of good, and this is his image, then the image finds its resemblance to the Archetype in being filled with all good.

11. Thus there is in us the principle of all excellence, all virtue and wisdom, and every higher thing that we conceive: but pre-eminent among all is the fact that we are free from necessity, and not in bondage to any natural power, but have decision in our own power as we please; for virtue is a voluntary thing, subject to no dominion: that which is the result of compulsion and force cannot be virtue.

…

Creation of Adam represents all Humankind (16.16-18)

16. In saying that God created man, the text indicates, by the indefinite character of the term, “all mankind.” For was not Adam here named together with the creation, as the history tells us in what follows? Yet the name given to the man created is not the particular but the general name. Thus we are led by the use of the general employment of our nature to some such view as this—that in the divine foreknowledge and power all humanity is included in the first creation. For it is fitting for God not to regard any of the things made by him as indeterminate, but that each existing thing should have some limit and measure prescribed by the wisdom of its Maker.

17. Now just as any particular man is limited by his bodily dimensions, and the peculiar size which is conjoined with the superficies of his body is the measure of his separate existence, so I think that the entire plenitude of humanity was included by the God of all, by his power of foreknowledge, as it were in one body, and that this is what the text teaches us which says, God created man, in the image of God created he him. For the image is not in part of our nature, nor is the grace in any one of the things found in that nature, but this power extends equally to all the race: and a sign of this is that mind is implanted alike in all: for all have the power of understanding and deliberating, and of all else whereby the divine nature finds its image in that which was made according to it: the man that was manifested at the first creation of the world, and he that shall be after the consummation of all, are alike; they equally bear in themselves the divine image.

18. For this reason the whole race was spoken of as one man: namely, that to God’s power nothing is either past or future, but even that which we expect is comprehended—together with what is at present existing—by the all-sustaining energy. Our whole nature, then, extending from the first to the last, is, so to say, one image of Him Who Is, but the distinction of kind in male and female was added to his work last.

How does Matter arise from an Immaterial God?

24. There is an opinion about matter which seems not irrelevant to what we are investigating. It is that matter arises from the intelligible and immaterial. For we shall find all matter to be composed of qualities, and if it were stripped bare of these on its own, it could in no way be grasped in idea (λόγος).

If, then, color is intelligible and so is resistance and quantity and the other such properties, and if upon each of these being removed from the subject (ὑποκεíμενον) the whole idea (λόγος) of body would be removed: what follows? If we find the absence of these things causes the dissolution of body, we must suppose their combination is what generates material nature. For a thing is not a body if it lacks color, shape, resistance, extension, weight and the other properties, and each of these properties is not body, but is found to be something else, when taken separately. Conversely, then, when these properties combine they produce material reality.

Now if the conception of these properties is intelligible, and the divine is intelligible in its nature, it is not strange that these intellectual origins for the creation of bodies should arise from an incorporeal nature, with the intelligible nature establishing the intelligible properties, whose combination brings material nature to birth. (Trans. Richard Sorabji, Matter, Space, and Motion: Theories in Antiquity and Their Sequel [London: Duckworth, 1988], 53).

Augustine, On Faith and the Creed 2

“Almighty” entails rejection of Manichaean dualism and the goodness of creation

If [the Manichees] do admit that God almighty is the creator of the world, they must also admit that he made out of nothing the things that he made. For if they grant that he is almighty, they must concede that nothing exists except that of which God is Creator. For although he made something out of something—man out of clay, for instance—nevertheless he did not make any object out of anything that he himself had not made. For the earth from which the clay comes he had made out of nothing. And even if he had made the heavens and the earth out of some material—that is, the universe and all things that are in it, according to what is written, You who made the world out of matter unseen (Wis. 11:18)—or if he had created them from matter that was formless, as some manuscripts have it, yet we are in now way to believe that the material of which the universe was made could be itself co-eternal or coeval with God. Though this material may be without form or invisible—whatever might be its mode of subsistence—it could not possibly have subsisted of itself, as if it were co-eternal and co-eval with God. The mode of being that it possesses, one which enables it to receive the forms of different things, it owes to almighty God alone, by whose gracious disposition it not only has has a form but becomes capable of receiving other forms as well. …

The one who imparts forms to objects also imparts the potential to receive form. For of him and in him is to be found that unchanging species of incomparable beauty. Therefore, he himself is one who communicates to everything its possibilities, not only that it be actually beautiful but also that it be capable of being beautiful. For this reason, we rightly believe that God made all things of nothing. For, even although the world was made of some sort of material, this self-same material itself was made of nothing; so that, in accordance with the most orderly gift of God, there was to enter first the capacity of taking forms, and then that all things should be formed which have been formed. This, however, we have said, in order that no one might suppose that the utterances of the divine Scriptures are contrary the one to the other, in so far as it is written at once that God made all things of nothing, and that the world was made of matter without form.

Psuedo-Dionysius, The Divine Names 5–6, 20, 23, 31, 33

On creation, goodness, and evil

5. Every being and all the ages derive their existence from the Preexistent. All eternity and time are from him. The preexistent is the source and is the cause of all eternity, of time and of every kind of being. Everything participates in him and non among beings falls away. “He is before all things and in him all things hold together” (Col. 1:17). . . . It is only because of their participation in Being that they exist themselves and that things participate in them. If they have being as a result of the participation in Being itself, all the more so is this the case with the things which participate in them.

6. The first give therefore of the absolutely transcendent goodness is the gift of being, and that Goodness is praised from those that first and principally have a share of being.

 20. Evil does not come from the Good. . . . Evil is not a being; for if it were it would not be totally evil. . . . Evil, qua evil, never produces being or birth. All it can do by itself is in a limited fashion to debase and to destroy the substance of things. . . . Evil, then, is neither good nor productive of good, and everything is good to the extent that it draws near to the Good. Perfect goodness reaches out to all things and not simply to immediate good neighbors. It extends as far as the lowliest of things. In some beings it is present in full measure, to a lesser extent in others, and in the least measure in yet others. It is there in proportion to the capacity to receive it. Some share completely in the Good, others participate in it more or less, others have a slight portion only, and to others, again, the Good is but a far-off echo. The Good is present in proportion to this capacity. . . . To put the matter briefly. All beings, to the extent that they exist, are good and come from the Good and they fall short of goodness and being in proportion to their remoteness from the Good. . . . However, that which is totally bereft of the Good never had, does not have, never shall have, never can have any kind of being at all. . . . Even the person who desires the lowest form of life still desire life and a life that seems good to him; thus he participated in the Good to the extent that he feels desire for life and for what—to him at least—seems a worthwhile life. Abolish the Good and you will abolish being, life, desire, movement, everything. . . .

23. The Good is the creator and preserver of good things. If they are called evil it is not in respect of their being, since they owe their origin to the Good and were the recipients of a good being, but rather because being is lacking to them by virtue of their inability, as scripture puts it, “to hold on to their original source” (Jude 6). . . . [Even devils are not naturally evil.] Their evil consists in the lack of the angelic virtues! If they are declared to be evil, the reason lies in their weakness regarding their natural activity. Their deviation is the evil in them, their move away from what befits them. It is a privation in them, an imperfection, a powerlessness. It is a weakness, a lapse, an abandonment of the capacity they have to be perfect. . .

31. The Cause for all good things is one. If, however, evil is contrary to the Good, then evil must have numerous causes. And it is not principles and powers which produce evil but impotence and weakness and an inharmonious commingling of discordances. Evil things are not immobile and eternally unchanging but indeterminate, indefinite, and bearing themselves differently in different things. . .

33. Given the fact of Providence, how can there be evil? . . . . If not being is without some share in the Good and if evil is a deficiency of the Good and if no being is completely devoid of the Good, the Providence of God must then be in all beings and nothing can be lacking it. Providence even makes good use of evil effects to turn these or others to good use individually or collectively. It provides for each particular being. Therefore we should ignore the popular notion that Providence will lead us to virtue even against our will. Providence does not destroy nature. Indeed its character as providence is shown by the fact that it save the nature of each individual, so that the free may freely act as individual or as groups, insofar as the nature of those provided for receives the benefactions of this providing power appropriate to each one.

Maximus the Confessor, Ambiguum 7.2

On the divine Logos and the logoi

The one Logos is many logoi. This is evidenced in the incomparable differences among created things. For each is unmistakably unique in itself and its identity remains distinct in relation to other things. He will also know that the many logoi are the one Logos to whom all things are related and who exists in himself without confusion, the essential and individually distinctive God, the Logos of God the Father [citing Col. 1:15–17 and Rom. 11:36]. Because he held together in himself the logoi before they came to be, by his gracious will he created all things visible and invisible out of non-being. . . .

We believe that a logos of angels preceded their creation, a logos preceded the creation of each of the beings and powers that fill the upper world, a logos preceded the creation of human beings, a logos preceded everything that receives its becoming from God, and so on. It is not necessary to mention them all. The Logos whose excellence is incomparable, ineffable and inconceivable in himself is exalted beyond all creation and even beyond the idea of difference and distinction. This same Logos, whose goodness is revealed and multiplied in all the things that have their origin in him, with the degree of beauty appropriate to each being, recapitulates all things in himself (Eph. 1:10). Through this Logos there came to be both being and continuing to be, for from him the things that were made came to be in a certain way and for a certain reason, and by continuing to be and by moving, they participate in God. For all things, in that they came to be from God, participated proportionally in God, whether by intellect, by reason, by sense-perception, by vital motion, or by some habitual fitness. . . .

The logoi of all things known by God before their creation are securely fixed in God. They are in him who is the truth of all things. Yet all these things, things present and things to come, have not been brought into being contemporaneously with their being known by God; rather, each was created in an appropriate way according to its logos at the proper time according to the wisdom of the maker, and each acquired concrete actual existence in itself. . . . All created things are defined, in their essence and in their way of developing, by their own logoi and by the logoi of the beings that provide their external context. Through these logoi they find their defining limits.