Глава I. Общее учение о Боге – Творце мира

When presenting the general teaching about God as Creator, it is necessary to reveal the teaching of revelation and the church: about the Author of the world in general, about the method, time and sequence of the origin of the world, as well as about its purpose and comparative perfection 20 . § 3. God is the First Cause or the Author of the world The world, as the totality of all finite being, existing in space and time, has the cause of its existence in God, and did not arise in any way by itself, causelessly or accidentally. God created everything that exists outside of Him - heaven and earth, everything in heaven and everything on earth, visible and invisible, that is, the world of pure spirits. This is how revelation and the church teach us to think about the Author of the universe. The very first words of Scripture are: in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth (Gen. 1:1). The psalmist says: The Lord does whatever he wants, in heaven and on earth, on the seas and in all the abysses (Ps. 134:6; fn. 88:12). The Apostles teach about the Son of God: All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made (John 1:3). By Him all things were created, both in heaven and on earth (Col. 1:16; cf. Acts 14:15). The Church’s confession of faith “in one God... Creator of heaven and earth, visible to all and invisible” from the very beginning was and is supplied now as a necessary condition for joining its members and belonging to it. The truth about God, as the only Author or First Cause of the world, is necessarily recognized by the natural mind of man, not illuminated by the light of revelation. It necessarily follows from the very concept of God as an unlimited and original being, and therefore everyone who admits the existence of the Divine recognizes that the world originated from God. It is preached by everyone, both religious and philosophical (with the exception of materialism with its doctrine of the self-formation of the world from eternal matter) teachings. It is contained in the pagan religions of even savage peoples, in which it is the gods who are represented as the educators of the world, its artists, although not its creators. Also in dualistic philosophy. According to her teachings, from eternity there have been two principles: God and self-existent matter. God brings life and activity into matter, applies His creative and all-arranging power to it, and you form a beautiful world out of matter, just as a skilled sculptor carves a beautiful statue from a stone mass (teaching Anaxagoras-Zeno, Plato, Aristotle, Seneca, etc., as well as the Persian religion of Zoroaster). Thus, in dualism, God is partly recognized as the creator of the world. In all types of pantheism, God is recognized as the culprit or the root cause of the world, not only as a structured whole, but also as being in general. At the same time, the world is considered either as an outflow (emanation) from the essence of the Divine (among the Alex. Gnostics), then as the self-development of the Divine, gradually moving from lower forms of life to higher ones (with Hegel), then as a temporary manifestation in various forms of a single, eternal and absolute substance or purely abstract being (among the Eleatics, Spinoza and partly in Brahmanism), and so on. Thus, the teaching of revelation about the origin of the world from God does not stand alone. The conviction that the world originated from the Supreme Being - God, is as universal a conviction as the conviction in the existence of God. But the great difference between the conclusions and assumptions of natural human thought and the teaching of revelation lies in the solution of the question of the very way in which God created the world. The true answer to this question, consistent with the highest perfections of God’s being, is given only by revelation in its teaching about the origin of everything that exists from God through creation. § 4. God produced everything that exists through creation God is the "Creator of heaven and earth", i.e. He produced everything that exists in space and time through creation. Under the name of creation in the revealed teaching is meant such an action of the omnipotence of God, by which everything that exists outside of God was produced but from something, but from non-existent (εξ ουκ όντων - 2 Mac. 7:28), from nothing (ex nihilo), the sole free action of the will of God. Hence, to believe in God as the Creator of heaven and earth means to recognize that the world, that is, the totality of all finite existence, was created by God not only in form (or the image of its existence), but also in matter (or in its essence) from complete non-existence. The doctrine of the origin of the world through creation denies all other possible assumptions about the method of the origin of the world that have been expressed. in ancient times and now, namely: the dualistic teaching - about God’s formation of the world from ready-made matter that existed from eternity, the pantheistic teaching - about God creating the world from His own being, and even more so, the materialistic teaching - about the self-formation of the world from eternal matter. The Doctrine of Revelation. – The revelation clearly expresses the truth professed by the church that “God created the world out of nothing” (Rev. I, Part I, Questions 8 and 18). It nowhere allows for the existence of matter or any essence from which everything would be formed next to God or together with God. In the same way, with its teaching about God as an original, unchangeable and all-perfect being, immeasurably towering above everything finite, it excludes any thought about the birth or origin of the world from God in the pantheistic sense. On the contrary, when mentioning the origin of the universe, Scripture always assumes or directly affirms the creation of everything from non-existence, from nothing. The first and decisive expression of the truth about the creation of everything from nothing is in the words of the Writer of Genesis: in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth (Gen. 1:1). The words heaven and earth are usually used by the writer of history and other sacred writers to designate the entire volume of coherent existence (for example, Ps. 149: 1–6, 7–11; 88:12; Acts 14:15). - the same as the apostle says - visible and invisible (Col. 1:16). God created all this – bara (creavit). The word bara in Hebrew. language the creative actions of God are designated in contrast to human actions. It contains the concept of not just education, formation, but creative creation (out of nothing), the origin of something that never existed, and is never put in connection with a word meaning preliminary material from which God would form something (in the latter case, words synonymous with bara are used, namely: asah - to do and jazar - to form). And since the power of creativity is characteristic only of the omnipotence of God, the same word is never used in speech either about angels or about people: God alone is called Bara - Creator. In particular, that the Writer of Genesis also uses this word to designate the idea of ​​the origin of heaven and earth from nothing, it is clear from the connection and composition of his speech. In connection with the word in the beginning (Heb. bereschit), i.e. when there was nothing yet, created - bara undoubtedly expresses the thought of creation from nothing. It is also clear from the entire composition of the speech - from the indication that from the created earth, which was formless and empty (2 v.), God gradually formed everything visible. The truth about the origin of everything that exists outside of God through creation, briefly and simply expressed by Moses, is repeated throughout the writings of the Old Testament. Job professes faith in God as the Creator of the world when he says: who in all this (i.e., in creatures) does not recognize that the hand of the Lord created this (Job 12:9)? The Psalmist repeats the same thing: in the beginning You, he says, founded the earth, and the heavens are the work of Your hands; they will perish, but You will remain; and they will all wear out like a robe, and like a garment You will change them, and they will be changed; but You are of Himself (Ps. 101:26–28). The last words obviously eliminate the idea of ​​creating a changeable being from the unchangeable being of God in the pantheistic sense, and the silence about the substance from which everything would be produced by God shows that everything that exists outside of God is the work of the creative omnipotence of God: He said, and it was made; He commanded, and it appeared (Ps. 32:9; 149:5). Faith in God as the Creator of the world was also professed by the prophets and constantly reminded their people of this truth in view of the inclination of the Jews to worship vain and insignificant gods (Is. 51:13; 45:18; 37:16; Jer. 10:11–12; 32:17; 51:15; Dan. 14:5, etc.). In later times, the most sublime example of the confession of faith in God the Creator was shown by the pious mother of the Maccabees. Convincing one of her sons to patient martyrdom for the faith of the fathers of Antiochus, she expressed the confession of this faith as follows: I beg you, my child, look at heaven and earth and, seeing everything that is on them, know that God created everything from nothing (ότι έξ ούκ όντων έποίησεν αύτά ό Θεός – 2 Mac.7:28), out of nothing, that is, everything was created by the one power of the omnipotence of God, and not from any ready-made beginning (ούκ έξ όντων, - not from anything, as stated in the Alex. list book of Maccabees, in the Vulgate ex nihilo - out of nothing) 21. In the New Testament, the Old Testament teaching about creation is confirmed in full force, but with the addition that the participation of the Son of God in the work of creation is shown. So it is said about God that He calls the non-existent as existing (καλῶν τὰ μὴ ὄντα ὡς ὄντα), i.e. He calls the non-existent into existence (Rom. 4:17; fn. Gen. 17:5). About the Son of God Evang. John teaches: Everything began to be through Him (πάντα, i.e., everything that exists, therefore matter), and without Him nothing began to be (strengthening and confirmation of the previous thought) that began to be (John 1:3; cf. Rev. 4:11). About the same app. Paul says this: By Him (the Son of God) all things were created, that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible (Col. 1:16; cf. Heb. 3:4); also: everything is from Him, by Him and to Him Rom.11:36), that is, everything that is not God, all temporary existence, has the beginning and cause of its existence not in itself, but in God, and only in God alone, and therefore it would be in vain to prefer anything like matter to those that existed, or exist, outside or independently of God. So, everything that exists outside of God is produced by the creative omnipotence of God. Only one frank religion tells us about this method of the origin of the world, that is, through creation from nothing, from which the idea of ​​creation passed into the so-called. natural religions, e.g. Mohammedanism, as well as philosophy. Natural reason did not reach it through its own efforts, and even now, when this truth is proclaimed to a person from childhood and seems very simple and understandable, a person either distorts it or does not accept it every time he breaks away from the soil of revelation and surrenders to his own speculations. By his own efforts, man could only rise to the idea that God is generally the First Cause of the world, its Artist or World Formator, but could not step over the abyss separating being from non-existence, otherwise he rose only to the idea of world formation, but not to the idea of pure creation, and at the same time fell and fell, as the history of the many different systems of ancient and modern philosophy shows, into dualism, or pantheism, and rejection of the existence of the Divine - and into materialism. Belief of the Church. – The Christian Church has invariably from the very beginning maintained and taught to its members the dogma of the creation of the world by God. In all the symbols of the ancient churches there is a member teaching to believe in God “Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth” (symbols of Antioch and Caesarea-Palestine, and in the symbols of Jerusalem and Cyprus with the addition), “everything visible and invisible” 22. They demanded faith in this truth, incomprehensible to reason, from all members of the church and the pastors of the church, as faith in dogma revealed by God, received by the church from Jesus Christ and the apostles. “First of all, believe,” the “Shepherd” Hermas instructs the believer, that there is one God, who created and accomplished everything, who brought everything into existence from nothing” (ex nihilo omnia fecit) 23. “The Church,” testifies St. Irenaeus, “received from the apostles and from their disciples the faith in one God the Father, Almighty, who created the heavens and the earth and the sea and everything that is in them." 24 According to Tertullian, the rule of faith, which originated from Christ, and which all nations are obliged to follow, required from everyone faith “in one God, the Creator of the world, who brought him out of insignificance by His Word, born before all ages” 25. The confession of the same truth is contained in all other ancient social models of faith and the statements of faith of representatives of the church. In the 4th century. The teaching about God, the Creator of the world, was also included by the universal church in the symbol of Nice and Constantinople, which became a model of faith for all times and for the entire Christian world. Having adopted the doctrine of God - the Creator of the world as a universally obligatory member of the faith for Christians, the church thereby rejected and condemned as false all the doctrines of the origin of the world (both ancient and modern), which explain the origin of finite being in any other way, and not through creation from nothing, i.e. the doctrine of dualism, pantheism, and even more so - materialism. The ancient fathers and teachers of the church, in their explanations of the doctrine of peacemaking accepted by the church, showed the inconsistency of even the most false teachings, which resolved the question of the origin of the world in disagreement with the teaching of revelation. Such false teachings in the first centuries of Christianity were: the opinion that the world originated, by itself, from the random cohesion of atoms (the theory of Democritus and the Epicureans), the opinion that God formed the world from matter coeternal with Him (the teaching of Plato and his followers), the doctrine of the origin of the world from self-development and self-discovery of the very essence of God in the pantheistic sense (mainly among the Gnostics - emanatists) and, finally, the opinion of some Gnostics that the world did not even come from God, but from the serving lower powers (angels) and even from the evil principle. Relatively more extensive refutations of these false teachings are found in the works of St. Irenaeus of Lyons, Tertullian, Blessed. Augustine, St. Epiphany 26. But brief remarks against the same false teachings are also found in many other fathers and teachers of the church, starting with the apologists 27. In their denunciations of these false teachings, the ancient teachers pointed out both the internal inconsistencies contained in these teachings and their inconsistency with the true concept of God as an infinite and unconditional being. In essence, they presented the same arguments that are put forward against such teachings at the present time. The basis of all ancient pagan false teachings about the origin of the world was the position that ex nihilo nihil fit. Contrary to this position and to explain the possibility of the origin of everything that exists from complete non-existence, all the most ancient teachers equally pointed to the omnipotence of God, for which nothing is impossible. “What would be great, I asked, for example. Theophilus of Antioch, if God created the world from ready-made matter? And a human artist, if he receives a substance from someone, makes of it what he wants. The power of God is revealed in the fact that He creates out of nothing what He wants... and the way He wants” 28. “Whereas people,” argues St. Irenaeus, they can do something not out of nothing, but through the medium of matter; God actually surpasses people in that He Himself called into existence the matter of His creation, which did not exist before” 29. Lactantius revealed the same idea in more detail, refuting Cicero’s dualistic view of the origin of the world. “It is incredible,” said Cicero (in his book “On the Nature of the Gods”), “for God to create matter.” “But why do you say this?” wrote Lactantius. “You haven't provided any evidence for that. On the contrary, I say that this is a very probable thing, and I say this for the most real reason that God cannot be put in the position of a master who must give only form to his work. What advantage could the power of God have over the weakness of man if God had a need for something extraneous?... If He waited for someone to supply Him with substance, then His power would be limited, and the one who provided Him with substance would be more powerful than He. What name would we give to someone who is more powerful than God, while God would not create on his own, but would only process the material that another would give Him? And since it is impossible that anyone could be more powerful than God, we must admit that matter is the same work of God’s hands as all other things made from it.”.. “God, you say, has the same need for matter as a master needs wax, and God just as surely cannot create material as a craftsman cannot produce wax.” – “On the contrary, God does not have the slightest need for material; and if He needed it, then His power would already be imperfect, that is, human, then He would not be God either... But God creates everything that He pleases from what does not exist, because from eternity... Infinite omnipotence belongs to Him” 30. Other church fathers said the same thing. According to St. Athanasius “if God is not the creator of matter Himself, but creates every being from ready-made matter, then it is clear that He is powerless, because He is not able to produce anything real without matter, just as a woodmaker, no doubt, due to powerlessness, not having wood, cannot make any necessary thing” 31. As is known, the ancient patristic explanations of the dogma of God the Creator of the world did not remain without good consequences for the consciousness of believers. False teachings gradually really lost their meaning and little by little faith in God as the Creator of the world became an almost universal belief in the Christian world. False teachings about the origin of the world arose again in later times, mainly in the Protestant world. But in essence, the newest errors are only a repetition of the false teachings of pagan religion and philosophy, although apparently they are in connection with the successes of natural science. This is understandable, however. With a weakening in consciousness or even rejection of the truth about creation, only a dualistic, or pantheistic and materialistic solution to the question of the origin of everything that exists is possible for human thought. Resolution of Objections to the Dogma of Creation. – The truth about God the Creator of the world proclaimed by Christianity seemed inconvenient even during its initial spread in the world. The evidence of experience that “out of nothing nothing comes” and the appearance of evil in the world seemed to the defenders of false teachings irreconcilable with the teaching of revelation about the method of origin of the world through the creative action of the one and all-good God. Therefore, even in ancient times, objections were made to the dogma of creation. The ancients are repeated and new objections are raised against the same teaching in modern times. But all these objections are easily resolved in the light of revealed teaching. Here are the most important of these objections and the answer to them. I. Creation from nothing, they say, contradicts the position recognized in ancient times as an immutable truth (axiom): “out of nothing nothing comes” (ex nihilo nihil fit). Indeed, “nothing can come from nothing by itself,” or more simply: “nothing can happen without any reason.” But the doctrine of God’s creation of the world does not contain the idea that the universe arose by itself from nothing, without any reason. It indicates that Divine omnipotence brought it from non-existence into existence, and therefore indicates the reason and force that was able to do this. The indicated objection should therefore have an application not to revealed teaching, but to those teachings that allow the self-formation of the world from original and eternal matter and thereby directly deny that the world originated from some cause. II. Against the doctrine of creation, they further point to the imperfection of the world and the existence of evil in it, reasoning as follows: God is an all-perfect Being, and the world is an imperfect being, and an imperfect creation is unworthy of a perfect Creator. Hence, how could God, an all-perfect Being, create an imperfect being, with the possibility of the appearance and existence of evil in it? In this case, the doctrine of creation allegedly has the same shortcomings, as a result of which the doctrine of pantheism about the origin of finite being is rejected as false. But this objection can also be resolved without difficulty in the light of revealed teaching in general. Imperfections in the world, both spiritual and material, really exist. Some of them are imperfections only in comparison with the all-perfect nature of the Creator and, therefore, follow from the limitations of the world, while others depend not only on limitations, but also on other reasons that do not directly follow from limitations, which are all the phenomena of moral evil. But the world, as a creation, cannot be a deity, and therefore must be limited and with the imperfections inherent in limitations; otherwise he would be identical with the Lord. Thus, imperfections of the first kind are directly presupposed by the doctrine of the creation of the world by God; It would be incongruous to think that God created a being equal to Him in perfection. But even imperfections of the second kind, i.e., the manifestation of moral evil, cannot destroy the thought of creation, for God is not the Creator of evil. The reasons for these phenomena lie in the relative independence and freedom of intelligent beings in the world. Thus, when looking at the world as a creation of God, as a being secondary and separate from God, the above objection is resolved without difficulty. But the origin of the very same properties of the world - its limitations and imperfections, and even more so the phenomena of evil - is inexplicable when looking at the world as a modification or manifestation of the divine nature, i.e. from the point of view of the pantheistic doctrine of the origin of the world. From this we can see how unfair the idea is that the revealed doctrine of creation is inherent in the same defect as pantheism. III. Finally, the doctrine of creation is opposed (mainly by Spencer and the positivists) to the impossibility of understanding and imagining the origin of anything from nothing: experience does not present anything similar that could understand the possibility of creation. In this regard, they say, other doctrines about the origin of the world have undoubted advantages over the doctrine of creation from nothing: dualism, for example, is more understandable in that in reality we see the creation of various things by man from a given material, and pantheism has a similarity in organic development. True, the creation of the world is a great mystery for the limited human mind. In experience, we see only the origin of some things from others, but not their emergence from nothing, and therefore we cannot have a visual idea or form a concept about the origin of something from non-existence. This impossibility appears all the more clearly to us because creation is an action that is characteristic of God alone. But can a complete and clear understanding of God’s actions be accessible to a limited being? The inability to visually imagine the creative action of God's omnipotence, however, cannot serve as a sufficient basis for denying this action itself. In general, to deny something just because it is incomprehensible would be unreasonable, of course, when this incomprehensible or incomprehensible does not contradict the laws of our thinking. In essence, every natural process is incomprehensible to us - how, for example, from the combination of chemical bodies a new body, unlike them, arises, or from a seed - a plant, from an embryo - an animal 32. Regarding the fact that the doctrine of pantheism and dualism about the origin of the world can be given preference over the doctrine of creation because it is more understandable, it is enough to note the following: what is more obligatory for the mind - whether to accept a teaching that, although it has an incomprehensible side (incomprehensible due to the natural inability of our limited mind to grasp with the mind the work of God that exceeds its strength), but does not contradict either thinking or experience, or allow teachings that, although at first glance seem clearer, upon closer examination do not explain anything, on the contrary, become entangled in hopeless contradictions? And these are precisely the dualistic and pantheistic doctrine of the beginning of the world in comparison with the doctrine of creation. The last explanation of the beginning of the world is the only one that satisfies the requirements of reason, completely consistent with both the common concept of God and the concept of the world. 33 The falsity of dualistic, pantheistic and materialistic teachings about the origin of the world. – The doctrine of the origin of everything that exists through creation, having its basis in revelation, finds confirmation in the inconsistency of all other possible solutions to the question of the method of origin of the world. Such decisions, to which only the natural thought of man could rise and which exhaust the range of his possible decisions, are precisely: from the side of those who admit the existence of the Divine - dualistic and pantheistic, and from the side of those who reject the existence of God - materialistic. I. To explain the origin of the world, dualism recognizes two opposite and independent principles. According to the teachings of some dualistic systems, God created or formed the world from self-existent, co-eternal matter with Him (so-called metaphysical dualism), 34 according to the teachings of others - the world is the product of two living and active principles - good and evil, good God and some living force hostile to good (evil God or matter, as an active principle with properties opposite to good - cosmological dualism). 35 In both forms, the dualistic explanation of the origin of the world is equally untenable. The origin of matter as original and co-eternal with God (even if we understand matter in the sense of Plato’s μὴ ὄν) leads to ideas about God that are unworthy of the most perfect Being. With the recognition of self-existent matter, it is no longer possible to imagine God as a being, most perfect both in being and in His properties. His existence meets boundaries where the existence of matter begins. Limiting God by being, matter independent of Him must also limit His infinite properties, placing a limit on their full manifestation. Neither omnipotence, nor the free will of God, nor the wisdom and goodness of the Divine can manifest themselves in complete perfection in the structure of the world. There are limits to His omnipotence, just like His goodness and intelligence and omnipresence. His power already ceases where the independence of the world begins. And therefore His works cannot be as perfect as His wisdom and goodness would require, and He is not able to prevent their imperfections. On the other hand, the very idea of ​​matter as an original, albeit inactive, beginning of the world, whether to represent it with certain qualities or without quality, is equally impossible without internal contradictions. For if matter is represented as an existence that has some quality, some form (whether in the form of atoms, for example, or a completely extended substance, a mixture of elements, etc.) etc.), then the question arises: where do these qualities, this form come from in it - the inactive, dead (undoubtedly passive) beginning? Obviously, they could be communicated to matter by an active principle - God, but this already destroys its independence. If we assume matter to be something completely formless (ἄμορφον, as for example in Plato, although a being that has no certainty, no qualities is unthinkable), then the assumption of the existence of such a mother is completely unnecessary to explain the existence of the world: God, who produced something majestic and beautiful from a qualityless world, with all the variety of beings and objects found in it, is not able to produce this something that is called matter? With such matter, almost everything is left to God in the matter of world formation, and dualism is separated by the thinnest line from the doctrine of God as the Creator of the world. All the shortcomings of this type of dualism are eliminated only by the teaching that God is not only the Educator or Artist of the world, but also the Creator of matter itself. Explaining the origin of the world by the action of two original living principles - good and evil - is even more inconsistent with common thinking. The existence of two unconditional principles, of which one would limit the other, is impossible (see Part I, § 31. II). Observation of the structure of the universe also testifies against this explanation: the expedient order and unity of the universe, harmony in all its parts cannot be a consequence of the struggle of two opposing active principles, but necessarily require the recognition of a single creative principle. II. No less significant are the shortcomings of the pantheistic solution to the question of the origin of everything that exists. In pantheistic systems, the world appears to be a manifestation of self-development or the revelation of the Divine - not a personal being, but an impersonal unconditional principle (substance). God and the world-revelation outside the very essence of God are not different in essence, they are identical. 36 The inconsistency of such an understanding of the origin of the world is clearly revealed from the following. If the world were a manifestation, the self-development of the Divine, then it should represent complete correspondence with God in everything, express what lies in the essence of God. All properties and qualities of the world, as a manifestation of the very nature of the Divine, should be eternal, unchangeable, etc., that is, the world in its totality should possess all the perfections and properties of the being of God; everything in the world must be divine, all-perfect. But in reality this is not the case; in the world we see a constant change of appearance and disappearance, perfection and shortcomings, we also see a direct contradiction to the ideas of rationality and goodness, both in the spiritual and moral world (with good and evil, with truth and error, with truth and order - disorder, disorder and suffering), and in the material world (anomalies or failed works of nature, diseases and other manifestations of physical evil). All this shows that the world cannot be recognized as the outflow or self-incarnation of the Divine, the most perfect Being. If, however, we agree with pantheism and recognize it as a manifestation of the Divine, then it will be necessary to represent God as a changeable being, subject to the law of temporal-spatial existence, to recognize Him as the source of imperfections and evil itself. But such a concept destroys the very thought of God, leaving nothing of it except the name. 37 III. As for, finally, the materialist view of the origin of the world, its contradictions to common thinking are even more sharp and crude 38 . Materialism recognizes the only beginning and essence of world existence as the insensible and lifeless primary substance, matter. This matter alone exists in the true sense of the word; she is eternal, she is everything, and besides her there is nothing; there is no soul and spiritual world, there is no God. From self-existent, insensitive and lifeless matter, which supposedly existed from time immemorial in the form of a countless number of atoms (the smallest indivisible particles of matter) with the forces inherent in matter, actually from the interaction of matter and force (affirmation of modern materialism), or even as a result of an accident that produced changes in the position of atoms (ancient materialists directly expressed this, but in the teachings of modern materialism, in essence, chance is also the last basis of world formation), all the different types of being, starting with the unreasonable and insensitive and ending with spiritual and moral beings, in general the entire well-ordered world (cosmos) and the expediency observed in it 39 . There are obvious inconsistencies with common thinking in such a teaching - the teaching itself about self-education or the causeless origin of the world. According to this teaching, it turns out that the world, being the totality of everything finite, is at the same time an eternal being, exists eternally and yet occurs in time, consists of a number of causes, but has neither in itself nor outside itself a first cause, at its core is something blind, dead, soulless and monotonous, and yet from it is plan-shaped, forming the world, movement (i.e. of atoms), life and spirit with all the diversity and such a huge difference of the essence inhabiting it - there is something unreasonable, unconscious and unfree and nevertheless reveals itself according to reasonable laws and contains beings that think, are conscious of themselves and freely determine themselves to activity. This is not thinking, but rather a renunciation of all sound thought, a complete contradiction of the law, a sufficient reason, for from the reason disproportionately more than what is in it is deduced. Not only that, to admit the possibility of the origin of such a harmonious and law-conforming whole as the world, from the interaction of unconscious forces of nature and matter (atoms), without the assumption of any higher spiritual creative Power, is essentially the same as assigning the formation of the world to chance, i.e., not at all indicating the reasons for the existence of the world, - leaving the question of its origin without resolution and answer; usually refer to the case when the actual cause of a phenomenon is unknown. Chance appears to us as something unreasonable, idle, violating the correct flow of the laws of nature and human actions. It is just as unreasonable to explain the formation of the universe by the mechanical action of the forces of nature and matter or by the random collision of atoms as it is to admit, as Cicero rightly remarked against the ancient atomists, that “countless numbers of golden or any other forms of the twenty-one letters of our alphabet, being poured out on the ground, can compose the chronicles of Ennius in such a way that they can then be read... If the collision of atoms could produce the world, then why cannot it produce a portico, a church, a house, a city? It’s less complicated and much more convenient” 40. The inconsistency of the stated opinions about the origin of the world thus leads in a negative way to the recognition that the only true doctrine about the origin of the world is the doctrine about the creation of the world by God. It does not contain any of those shortcomings and contradictions that are characteristic of the false teachings discussed. It indicates a sufficient reason for the origin of the world (which materialism lacks) in the free creative action of an omnipotent and wise God. The very way God creates the world, that is, through creation, indicated by revelation, is in full agreement with the common sense concept of God as an all-perfect and unlimited being: such a Being cannot experience any restrictions on His activity, not only by any being lying outside Him (for example, the original matter of dualists), but also by any internal necessary law of self-development weighing on Him (as pantheists teach); therefore, if the world has a beginning from God, then it can only be through the free action of His will, through creation. Equally, the revealed teaching of all the teachings about the origin of the world is the only one consistent with the concept of the world: lawfulness and harmony in the world, as well as the existence of spiritual beings in it (which materialism cannot explain) find their basis in the highest perfection of the Creator; the limitations of the world and its shortcomings (which pantheism cannot explain) are explained by the separation of the world from God, as His creation, and not a manifestation of His own nature. § 5. The creation of the world is not from eternity, but in time, or together with time I. The world does not exist from eternity, but was created by God in time, or together with time. The dogma of the temporality of the world follows directly from the doctrine of the creation of the world. If the world is created, it means that it never existed, and therefore has a beginning. Just as the eternal cannot be created, for it has always existed and exists, so the created cannot be eternal, for it never existed and it began to exist only after creation. The Creator and his creation cannot be co-eternal: the producing cause must exist before what came from it. Thus, what is created must be recognized as initial or temporary. That's not enough. Time is not something that exists independently of things, but is nothing more than successive and consistent changes occurring in the existence of things; without such changes there would be no place for time. Therefore, it is even more correct to say that God created everything that exists not only not from eternity, but in time, but also together with time. The Orthodox Church teaches that God is “the Creator not only of things, but also of the very time and age in which things came into being.” 41 Revelation affirms the truth about the temporality of the world when it directly mentions the beginning of the universe: in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth (Gen. 1:1), and indicates that it once did not exist: Before the mountains were born, You formed the earth and the universe (Ps. 89:3), - or - now glorify Me, O Father, with You, with the glory that I had with You before the world was (John 17:5). On the other hand, eternal or having neither beginning nor end of its existence (Rev. 1:8) in comparison with everything that came from God, it calls only God. If He alone is without beginning, then everything else, therefore, is not without beginning. The creation of time itself is assimilated to God in the words of the Apostle about the Son of God: through whom also he made the worlds (Heb. 1:2; cf. Proverbs 8:22–23). Although the world was created in time or together with time, the thought of creating the game was inherent in the Divine mind from eternity, and moreover, like the thought of creating it at a certain time: Known (γνωστά) to God from eternity are all His works (Acts 15:18). From eternity, before the creation of the world, God contemplated in His mind all His future creations - and the image of the material world in its entire composition, in all even the smallest parts, with all its properties - and the image of the spiritual world in all its most distant destinies, in all free actions and their consequences, in all its endless existence. The same idea is expressed by the apostle. Paul, when he teaches that the ages of t.s. times and the entire created world, according to the creative word of God, began to be visible from the invisible, that is, from their existence from eternity in the mind of God in only a mental or hidden form (Heb. 11:3). With common sense, you can be convinced that the world is not without beginning, from the changeability observed in it, from the constant emergence and growth, decay and destruction. ( Ps. 102:26–28 ). What is changeable cannot last forever; change takes place in time and cannot be represented without a beginning. And on the contrary, this constitutes a generally accepted truth: "what exists from eternity must eternally remain as it exists from eternity," that is, it must be eternally unchangeable, and not only in essence, but also in state. Therefore, it would be incongruent with sound thinking to admit the eternity of the world, subject to constant change in all its parts. Materialism, with its doctrine of the self-formation of the world in time from eternal matter, is such the incongruity is indeed inherent. It is this that forced some of them (for example, Kolbe) to recognize an even greater incongruity, namely, that the world is eternal, but only in the sense of matter and force, but also as a well-ordered cosmos - in its entire volume and in the form in which it exists now. II. No matter how clear it is that the world created and subject to constant changes must be recognized as having an origin, in reality some objections have been and are being made against the doctrine of the creation of the world by God in time. In ancient times, the famous Origen (as well as Proclus) found it impossible to reconcile the temporality of the world with the concept of the immutability of God. In the Middle Ages, some of the scholastic theologians argued that the world has no beginning and was created by God from eternity. In modern times, many Protestant theologians (for example, Schleiermacher) also repeat this, but pantheists and materialists especially rebel against the doctrine of the temporality of the world. But all the perplexities and objections raised against the dogma of the temporality of the world-making are not at all such that they could force the recognition of the eternal existence of the world or the eternal peace-making of God. We will indicate the most important of them and give an answer to them. A. The doctrine of the temporality of the world is supposedly incompatible with the immutability of God. If we assume that God becomes the Creator in time, then He is changeable, because from the time of creation a property appears in Him that was not in Him before, and it is wicked to think about God in this way. He is eternally omnipotent, good, wise, and cannot remain inactive. If we recognize that He is the Creator from eternity, then the world must necessarily exist from eternity, for how can there be a Creator without creatures, a Lord without slaves, a Father without children (objection of Origen and Proclus)? 42 God is truly unchangeable, but changeability is not introduced into His being when we imagine creation completed in time, for creative power, as well as the thought and desire to create the world, are eternal in God. Consequently, the property of creativity did not transcend into His essence only when He carried out His eternal advice externally - to give existence to limited beings, but belongs to His eternal essence. In time, determined by God Himself, it had only an external manifestation, just as in time the eternal plans of God regarding the further destinies of the world after creation are realized. On the other hand, the creation of the world does not introduce any change into the being of God, because God did not produce the world from his own being, but created it through external creative action (sn. I, part § 25). b. The following objection is similar to the above: the property of the Highest Good, that is, God, is to communicate Himself, not to hide only in Himself. But God can never be without this essential property that belongs to Him. Consequently, they say, there was no time at all in which He did not communicate to creatures both existence and His other benefits. It is true that God is always ready to communicate His benefits to beings who can receive them. But among limited beings there is not a single one that could accept them from eternity, precisely because not a single creature can exist from eternity. Therefore, there cannot be any communication of good to creatures from eternity. It is eternal in God’s intention, will, and pre-arrangement of all the goods appropriate to every being, but not eternal in its very application to limited existence 43 . Thus, this objection does not at all require the eternity of creation. V. From the side of materialism, mainly two objections are raised against the doctrine of the temporality of the world and in defense of its eternity. The first and most important thing is based on the assumption of the indestructibility of matter. Experience, they say, confirms that it is neither possible to produce again nor to destroy the slightest amount of matter by any means. Only physical and chemical transformations of matter occur, but nothing in the world is lost or created again. The ego supposedly proves the necessary and eternal existence of matter. But such a conclusion can be (and is) likened to the following: a child, playing with various toys, saw that many of them very soon succumbed to the influence of his childish strength and broke, while others, despite all his efforts, remained undestroyed. From here it draws (assuming such a degree of development in it) the conclusion: the first toys break, therefore, they were made by someone, the last ones - I could not break them, therefore, they are eternal. The conclusion about the eternity of matter from its indestructibility within the limits of experience is not at all more fundamental than this. Man, not knowing the essence of matter and not being able to destroy its various manifestations, claims that matter is eternal because he cannot destroy it. At the same time, it is forgotten that man, as a finite being and far from omnipotent, can neither create nor destroy anything 44 . Other data from the same natural sciences, on the contrary, necessarily lead to the conclusion about the appearance of matter in time. This includes, firstly, the evidence of science that our world undoubtedly has a history, that is, that it reached its present state gradually. But the eternal must remain unchanged forever. This means that matter, which undoubtedly developed and in its development was subject to changes, of which there cannot be an infinite number, must have a beginning in time. Secondly, according to the testimony of the same science, matter is subject to immutable laws, fatal necessity. But the very concept of necessity contains within itself a sign of subordination to something, dependence on another being, not on oneself. Therefore, the position: a substance acting according to the laws of necessity, original or eternal, contains an internal contradiction. Thus, in view of the most essential qualities of matter, which are evidenced by experience and natural science, it cannot be recognized as eternal and original. She could appear only in time, out of nothing, by the action of the omnipotence of God. Another materialist objection to the temporality of the world is based on the assumption that “a force that does not act cannot exist” (Büchner). This is supposed to apply to the supermundane Power, i.e. God. The essence of the objection derived from this is the following: to admit creation as a temporary action of the Creator means to recognize the creative Power as inactive before and after creation, and this equals the destruction of this Power. It is impossible to allow the existence of this Power only during creation. Therefore, it is necessary to recognize God as the creative power of the eternally created world. But the statement that every force cannot exist except in its action is false. In the field of physical forces, science distinguishes the so-called. their potential and kinetic energies; in the spiritual world, forces, talents, and abilities can exist in the soul without being revealed in their corresponding actions. Similarly, in God the creative power existed before and after creation, although it did not reveal itself externally. To think otherwise would be the same as asserting that the ability, for example. poetic creativity exists for the poet only during the creation of a poetic work, and before and after this creation it does not exist. But the idea contained in the objection is also fundamental: that the action of creativity exhausts the entire essence and content of the creative Power, and why, in the absence of creation, the Power itself disappears. In God there is a completeness of inner life and activity, regardless of His manifestations on the outside. 45 Thus, the objections that exist against the creation of the world in time do not in the least shake the frank dogma. And it’s understandable. If the world was created by God, then its existence began in time and along with time. To think otherwise, that is, to recognize the beginninglessness or eternity of the world, would mean recognizing it in this respect as equal to God. But “if God is not the only eternal one,” notes Tertullian, then He is not God.” 46 Then either dualistic or pantheistic ideas about the Divine are inevitable, equally false. This is the special significance of the revealed teaching about the temporality of the world and its superiority over the opposite teaching about the eternity of the world. But if the world was not created from eternity, then what did God do before the creation of the world? The inner life of the Divine is a mystery to the finite human mind. But the Christian teaching about the trinity of the Divine makes it clear that in God it is possible and actually exists an infinite fullness of inner personal life, to which the existence of the world cannot add anything (sn. I part § 48). “I ask,” argues St. Gregory the Theologian, “since inactivity and imperfection cannot be attributed to God; then what was God’s thought occupied with before the Almighty, reigning in the emptiness of centuries, created the universe and adorned it with forms? – She contemplated the longed-for luminosity of Her goodness, the equal and equally perfect luminosity of the triscendent Deity, as this is known to the only Deity, and to whom God has revealed it. The World-Generating Mind also considered in His great mental representations the images He himself composed of the world, which was produced later, but for God even then was real. God has everything before his eyes, what will happen, what was, and what is now. For me, such a division is established by time, that one is ahead, the other is behind; but for God everything merges into one, and everything is held in the muscles of the great Divinity” 47. This completely eliminates the pantheistic need to think of the world in terms of the eternal discovery of the Divine. § 6. Participation of all Persons of the Holy Trinity in the work of creation Revelation and the Church, teaching to represent the Author of the universe as the omnipotent Creator of the world, assign the work of creation not to any one person of the Divine, but to all three persons of the Holy Trinity. “We believe, the Eastern Patriarchs teach, that the Trinitarian God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit, is the Creator of everything visible and invisible” (Episicle 4). It is clear that just as the dogma about the trinity of the Divinity is a revealed dogma - in the special and fullest meaning of this word (sn. I part § 32), so also about the participation of all the Persons of St. We can have knowledge of the Trinity in the matter of creation to the extent that it is revealed to us by God Himself. The human mind cannot rise on its own to the knowledge of this truth. I. Covert indications of the participation of all Persons of St. The Trinity in the work of creation is found in the old covenant, but this truth is expressed most clearly in the revelation of the new covenant. General indications of this truth can be seen in all those places of Scripture in which the creation of the world is attributed to the Divinity in general, which is Trinitarian, and not to one of the persons of St. Trinity. There are many such testimonies both in the Old Testament (Is.45:7; Jer.10:12; Ps.114:23; 133:8) and in the New Testament; (Acts 14:15; 17:24; 1 Cor. 11:12; Heb. 3:4). The expressions of the writer of everyday life are especially significant in this regard: in the beginning God (bara Elohim) created the heavens and the earth (Gen. 1:1); And God said: Let us make man in our image, after our likeness (v. 26). But there is also evidence in Scripture that separately indicates the creative activity of one or another person of St. Trinity. So, about God the Father, for example. It says: we have one God the Father, from whom are all things (1 Cor. 8:6; Heb. 2:10). In the apostolic prayer (Acts 4:24–28) the initial words: Sovereign God, who created heaven and earth and the sea and all that is in them, are addressed specifically to God the Father. The Son of God learns to participate in peacemaking, for example. in the words: All things came into being through Him, and without Him nothing began to be that began to be (John 1:3), or: By Him (the Son) were all things created, that are in heaven and that are on earth... all things were created by Him and for Him (Col. 1:16; cf. Heb. 1:3; 1 Cor. 8:6). In the Old Testament, the participation of the Son in creation is covertly indicated in the words of the Most Hypostatic Wisdom about Herself: when He (Jehovah) prepared the heavens, I was there... Then I was an artist with Him (Prov. 8:27, 30). The participation of the Holy Spirit in peacemaking is more clearly indicated in the Old Testament. In the words of the writer of everyday life: The Spirit of God hovered over the waters (Gen. 1:2). The Spirit seems to be pouring life into the newly created substance. One can see a similar indication in the following words of the Psalmist, in which the Spirit appears to be different from Jehovah: You send Your spirit, they are created (that is, animals), and You renew the face of the earth (Ps. 103:30; cf. 32:6). He says: By the Word of the Lord the heavens were created, and by the breath of His mouth all their host (Ps. 33:6). One of Job's friends (Elihu) confessed: The Spirit of God created me, and the breath of the Almighty gave me life (Job.33:4). The New Testament says little and less clearly about the same thing. In general, the Holy Spirit in relation to the world in Scripture is depicted primarily as the source and giver of life and the Creator of the new creation (Luke 1:25; John 3:6; 20:22–23; 1 Cor. 12:8–11, etc.). The Church included the teaching about the participation of all the Persons of the Trinity in the work of creation in the Nice-Tsaregrad symbol itself. The symbol teaches to believe in “God the Father,... Creator of heaven and earth, visible to all and invisible,” - in “Son of God,... By Him were all things” and in “The Holy Spirit,... Life-giving Lord.” II. What was the participation of each person of the Holy Trinity in the work of creation? Scripture does not reveal this to us with complete clarity, but we can find indications in it that there is a difference in the creative activity of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Thus, in Scripture there are expressions that everything comes from (ἐξ) or from (ὑπό) the Father (1 Cor. 8:6; 2 Cor. 5:18), through (διά) the Son or by the Son (John 1:3; Col. 1:16; Heb. 1:3, etc.), in (ἐν and εἰς) the Holy Spirit ( ( Rom.11:36). The ancient teachers of the church briefly expressed the thought contained in such sayings of Scripture as follows: “The Father created the world through the Son in the Holy Spirit,” or “all things are from the Father through the Son in the Holy Spirit.” 48 More details about St. Vasily V. difference in the creative activity of St. He defined the Trinity as follows: “in the creation of them (angels), represent the original cause (προκαταρκτικὴν αἰτίαν) of what was created - the Father and the creative cause (δημιουργικὴν) - the Son and the perfecting cause (τελειωτικήν) - the Spirit, so that ministering spirits have existence by the will of the Father, are brought into being by the action of the Son, and are brought into being by the presence of the Spirit... Therefore, imagine the Three - the commanding Lord, the creating Word, and the affirming Spirit - “The Divine Spirit always finally accomplishes everything that comes from God through the Son.” “Whoever takes away the Son takes away the beginning of all creation; for the beginning of the independence of everything is God’s Word, by which all things were. Whoever takes away the Spirit cuts off the final completion of what is created; for by the sending and communication of the Spirit the receiving principle of being is brought into being.” 49 In a similar way, the difference in the creativity of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit is determined in Gregory the Theologian. He specifically says that God the Father wished to create beings who could enjoy His goodness, created in Himself the thought of them, “and His thought” “became a deed that was filled with the Word and accomplished by the Spirit.” 50 “Dominion,” he also teaches, “is called God, although it consists of the Three Highest: the Author, the Creator and the Perfecter, that is, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit” 51. Based on such explanations of the great teachers of the ancient church, and in view of the fact that in the affairs of the industrial world the participation of each of the persons of the Holy Trinity is depicted in revelation by their corresponding mutual relationship in the inner life of the Trinitarian Deity, the difference in the creativity of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit can be represented in this way. The Father, both in the internal life of the Holy Trinity, is the beginning and the culprit in relation to the Son and the Holy Spirit, and in creation He is the first, the fundamental reason for the existence of the world: in Him is the eternal council about the existence of the universe, He invents the plan of both the whole world and all parts of it (the ideal world) and has the will or desire for the existence of this finite world. The Son, as by His birth from the Father, is always equal to Him, is the image of His hypostasis (Heb. 1:3), in everything fulfills the will and thought of the Father (John 5:18-20), and in creation He carries out the thought and will of the Father about the existence of the world, creates the world of external reality. The Holy Spirit, just as in the trinitarian existence of the Divinity emanates from God the Father as life, and completes with Himself the entire infinite fullness of divine life, so in creation there is a perfect beginning; He brings life into the entire creation of the Son (that is, creates this life at the very beginning) and through this completes the work of the Son, which is why there is a life-giving Spirit. 52 Representing the difference in the creativity of the persons of the Holy Trinity in this way, one should not, however, think that the Son and the Spirit were only ministering instruments or agents in creation - They creatively accomplished the Father’s will and thought (John 1:3), or assume that the creative action of the Father is imperfect without the Son, the Son without the Spirit. Each of the persons of the Holy Trinity has full and perfect power for action and creation. The reason for such a distribution of the activities of the persons of the Holy Trinity in the work of creation lies solely in the will of the Trinitarian God, Who precisely wanted to reveal Himself to the world. “If the Father creates through the Son,” says St. Vasily V., then by this neither the creative power in the Father is represented as imperfect, nor the action of the Son is recognized as powerless... And in the Father, acting all in all, the action is not imperfect, and in the Son, creation is not insufficient, if not accomplished by the Spirit... Neither the Father, who creates by a single will, would have a need for the Son, but nevertheless wants through the Son; neither the Son, acting like the Father, would have any need for assistance, but He also wants to do it through the Spirit” 53. It is also clear that, given the unity and inseparability in essence of the persons of the Holy Trinity, it would be wrong to recognize the creativity of the Father as completely alien to the Son and the Spirit, and equally the creativity of the Son and the Spirit as alien to the Father. All persons of the Trinity have one thought, one power, one action, but they differ in their personal properties. In general, it is necessary to remember that the difference in the activities of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit during the creation of the universe is a mystery, just as the inner life of the one God in the Holy Trinity is a great mystery for us. § 7. Image of the Divine creation of the world The image of the Divine creation of the world is incomprehensible to the limited human mind. In constant experience, we see only the origin from ready-made material, but we do not see the origin of anything from complete non-existence. We can understand the mystery of creation only by faith. By faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that what is visible was made out of things that are visible (Heb. 11:3), teaches the apostle. Faith, according to the apostle, introduces us to the understanding of how, through the action of the omnipotence of God, the ages (τοὺς αἰῶνας), i.e., times that began to exist only with the appearance of creatures dependent on the conditions of time, and consequently the entire created world, from the invisible (μὴ φαινομένων), i.e. that is, from their existence from eternity in the mind of God only in one mental and hidden form, they began to be visible (τὰ βλεπόμενα), that is, God’s thought about the creation of the world was manifested and realized in reality in the absence of any third-party or external material. Without explaining the essence of the mystery of creation, revelation makes it clear that the image of the creation of the world is completely consistent with the properties of the all-perfect being of God. It teaches that creation was not caused by any unforeseen by God, random or external causes, but was predestined from eternity by Himself. All His works have been known to God from eternity (Acts 15:18; fn. Dan.13:42; Sir.23:29; 39:26). The creation of the world, therefore, is only the implementation of God’s eternal mental conceptions (ideas) about the world, in which He has contemplated all of His future creations from time immemorial 54 . It is clear that even during the creation of the universe there could not have been anything that could have modified God’s eternal mental ideas about the world and their implementation. Moreover, of course, it is unacceptable to think that anything in the world created by God, not excluding the most insignificant creatures and objects, came into existence by chance and idlely, appeared without being predetermined to exist in God’s eternal prototypes of the world. Along with eternity, thoughts about the world should also represent God’s desire to produce the world as eternal, of course, as the desire to produce the world at a certain time, for beginningless and eternal existence is characteristic only of God, but cannot be characteristic of created beings. Further, revelation teaches that the world was created by God according to the will of His free will, and not according to any necessity. The Lord does whatever He wants, in heaven and on earth, on the seas and in all the abysses (Ps. 134:6; fn. Ps. 113:11; Rev. 4:11). Otherwise, it is impossible to imagine the creation of the world as an action of the free will of God. If God had not had a free desire to create the world, then He would not have created it, because in relation to the actions of God, neither external nor internal coercion is conceivable. External coercion is inconceivable, for He is the only original and omnipotent; Moreover, before the beginning of the world there was nothing except God. But there could be no internal compulsion in God to create. God, as an all-perfect being, and therefore all-blessed, had no need for any other being, different from Himself, to complete His perfection and bliss. No one and nothing can increase or decrease either His blessedness (Job.22:2-3; Ps.15:11; Acts.17:25), or His glory (Sir.18:5), or in general the fullness of divine life. The assumption of the internal compulsion of Bot to create the world necessarily leads to false concepts about God and the world in the pantheistic sense. Finally, everything was created by God without the slightest difficulty or any obstacles, according to His eternal ideas about the world and the determinations of His will. This is presupposed by the very concept of God's omnipotence. Scripture testifies to the creativity of God: God said: let it be, and it became (Gen. 1 ch.); He commanded, and they were created (Ps. 149:5; fn. Is. 40:22–23). By the creative word of God, of course, we should not mean any articulate sound, or a word similar to a human one, but precisely the expression of the omnipotent will of God. God calls things that do not exist as if they exist (Rom. 4:17). So, God created the world according to His eternal prototypes (ideas) about it, completely freely, by the omnipotence of His will. The plan of the universe was predetermined in images from time immemorial; free will deigned to realize this plan at a certain time; the action of God’s omnipotence called forth from non-existence into existence a world consistent with the eternal prototypes. § 8 The motive and purpose of creation God created the universe completely freely. But the will of God, as the will of the most perfect Being, does not tend to act without worthy motives (voluntarily or according to the random attraction of feelings), and the omnipotence of the most supremely wise Being does not tend to act without goals. God did not create it in vain, says God about the earth (Is. 45:18). All that he did in it (Jerusalem) he did not do in vain, says the Lord Adonai (Ezek. 14:23). So, what prompted God to create the world, and for what purpose was He created? No one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God (1 Cor. 2:11). Consequently, we can know about the motives and purpose of creation only from the revelation of God, and moreover, to the extent and in such a way as God Himself deigned to reveal it to us. The Orthodox Church teaches the frank teaching about the motives and purpose of creation as follows: “one must believe that God,... being good and most good, although He is in Himself most perfect and glorified, created the world out of nothing to the end, so that other beings, glorifying Him, would participate in His goodness” (Prov. Rev. Part 1, reply to Question 8; sn. Space. Cat. Fr. 1 part) Thus, the motivation for the creation of the world was the infinite goodness of God, or the desire to have participants in His glory outside His inner life, and the purpose of creation was the bliss of creatures and the glory of the Creator. Love gave birth to the desire in God to create the world and moved His omnipotence and wisdom to fulfill this desire. It is difficult to imagine another motivation for creation that is more worthy of the Divine. Goodness or love is, as it were, the very essence of God. God is love (1 John 4:8, 16). No one is good except God alone (Mark 10:18). Therefore, His will is good and desires only good. Therefore, all of God’s actions in relation to the world are based on the desire for good. But it is not typical for love to remain closed, not to manifest itself outside. On the contrary, one of the fundamental and fundamental properties of love or goodness is to communicate its benefits to the greatest possible number of beings and to the greatest possible extent. By His infinite goodness, God created the world with countless kinds of finite species and forms of life capable of receiving the benefits, and imparted to them as many and such benefits as a finite living being can accept by its very nature. And Scripture, turning our gaze to the creations themselves, invites us to see and confess the work of God’s goodness in creation: The Lord is good to all, and His compassions are in all His works (Ps. 145:9; cf. Pres. 11:25–27). Praise the Lord, for He is good, for His mercy endures forever (Ps. 105:1ff; 106:1). Scripture points out in more detail goodness as the basis for the creation of various parts of the world when it calls for glory to be given to Him who created the heavens in wisdom, for His mercy endures forever; He established the earth on the waters, for His mercy endures forever; He created great lights, for His mercy endures forever; the sun is to rule the day, for His mercy endures forever; the moon and stars - to rule the night, for His mercy endures forever (Ps. 135:5-9). The ancient fathers of the church also pointed to goodness as the immediate cause that prompted the omnipotence and wisdom of God to create the world. “Good and all-good God,” says St. I. Damascene, was not content with contemplating Himself, but out of His (excessive) goodness He deigned that beings should arise who would benefit from His benefits and participate in His goodness” 55 . The world, created by the goodness of God, is only a reflection of the perfections of God, an expression in external existence of His eternal power and Divinity (Rom. 1:20). Before the creation of the world, God, with the fullness and perfection of His inner life, contemplated in images (ideas) countless worldly beings as images of His perfections. But His perfections, as the true and highest good, constitute the object of His love. It is clear that they cannot but constitute the object of His love and a reflection of His own being, that is, His perfections, in various finite forms and forms of created being (some similarity to this is man’s love for his ideals and creations). From here it follows that the goodness or love of God, as the motivation for the creation of the world, has its deepest basis in His infinite love for the highest perfections of His trinitarian being. Prompted by this love, He wanted to reveal His perfections outside of Himself, to endow them, and together with His bliss and His life, to other beings to the extent that this was compatible with their created nature. 56 The purpose of creation is consistent with the motivation. God created everything for the bliss of creatures and great things for the sake of His Glory. That the happiness of creatures is one of the purposes of creation is clear from the motive by which God was pleased to create the world. Revelation confirms this when it teaches that all of God’s actions in relation to the world - providence, redemption, and the salvation of man - have as their goal the bliss of creatures. This shows that the bliss of creatures was also the goal of creation. But just as the deepest motivation for creating peace is God’s love for the highest perfections of His Trinitarian Being, so the final, general, highest goal of created existence is the glory of God. According to the clear teaching of revelation, everything created is destined to be a revelation of the glory of God outside and exists for the glory of God. In the prophets, all nature appears to glorify God or is called to glorify Him: The heavens proclaim the glory of God, and the firmament proclaims the work of His hands (Ps. 18:2); the whole earth is filled with the glory of the Lord of hosts (Is. 6:3). Man was also created for the glory of God and for the revelation of His perfections (Sir.17:7–8, 10–11; Isa.43:7; 61:3). His whole life and existence should be directed towards one goal - the glory of God: glorify God both in your bodies and in your souls, which are God's (1 Cor. 6:20); So, whether you eat, drink, or whatever you do, do everything to the glory of God (1 Cor. 10:31; cf. Matt. 5:16). Angelic life seems to be a continuous and unceasing praise in honor and praise of God (Isa.6:3: Ps.102:20; Rev.4:8) In short, the entire universe, from the angels of heaven to the creatures of the earth, is nothing more than a single and majestic organ of this glory (Ps.148 and 150). Finally, in individual actions of God in relation to the world and man, their final goal is the glory of God. The Savior testifies that the greatest work of Divine love - the redemption of men - has as its goal the glory of God: now the Son of Man is glorified, and God is glorified in Him, He said in a farewell conversation with his disciples (John 13:31; fn. 8:50, 54; 17:1, 4). In the same way, the second coming of the Lord to earth will be for the sake of His glory: the Savior of the world will come, says the apostle, to be glorified in His saints and to appear wondrously on that day among all who believe (2 Thess. 1:10). In short, all the actions of God have one goal - His infinite glory, or the manifestation of His eternal perfections in temporary and external existence: The Lord did everything for His own sake (according to some translation from Hebrew - “to suit Him” - Proverbs 16:4), says the Wise. According to the apostle: all things were created by Him and for Him (εις Αὐτον - for Him) ( Col. 1:16 ), for Whom are all things and from Whom are all things ( Heb. 2:10 ); For all things are from Him, by Him and to Him (εις Αὐτὸν) (Rom. 11:36). Everything is directed towards this, that God may be all in all (1 Cor. 15:28). The glory of the Creator, combined with the perfection and bliss of creatures, is the general and final goal of all created existence. It goes without saying that this goal does not exclude special, private goals for certain types of created beings - for the angelic world, the earth and earthly creatures, for humans. But these private goals are subordinated to this last and highest goal. Such a sublime teaching of revelation about the motives and purpose of creation stands in close connection with the general teaching about God and His properties. It is clear that in those religious and philosophical teachings in which there is no true teaching about God in general, there cannot be a true teaching about the motives and purpose of God’s creation of all finite being. We really see this. Thus, in many pagan religions the origin of the world is explained either by chance, or by an unreasonable act on the part of God - the world seems to have been created solely by the excess of the creative power of God. In pantheistic religious and philosophical teachings, the impulse to create in God is either completely denied, when the world is recognized as the necessary self-discovery of God, or, as in pantheism imbued with the principles of pessimism, the origin of the world appears to be the unreasonable self-denial of the Divine, sin and error (for example. in Brahminism, the creation of the world by Brahma is the seduction of some Maya) a product of the blind will of the Divine (in Schopenhauer) or the “unconscious”, which only after the creation of the world begins to come to the consciousness of the evil it has done (in Hartmann). Note. – The creation of the world for the sake of the glory of God does not stand in any contradiction with the teaching about the creation of everything for the bliss of creatures. Essentially, these are not two goals, but only two sides of the same goal, viewed from different points of view and in different relationships. The glory of God is not anything like human glory. God seeks glory for Himself not in the same way as people seek it: His glory is inextricably linked with the bliss of creatures - it is their perfection and bliss. To the extent that a creature assimilates or reflects the glory of God or His perfections, and through this becomes familiar with the Creator, the source of true perfection and bliss, to that extent is its bliss possible. The glory of God in visible nature is its beauty and well-being; in rationally free beings - their spiritual perfection and the bliss associated with them. The world of pure spirits is a world of complete bliss accessible to creation, because the angels of God consciously and freely, constantly and unchangeably serve God, and in this service lies their highest perfection, their closest communication with God. Nature, revealing within itself the endless perfections of God and presenting the wonderful harmony of existence and life, is not aware of what it reveals, although in it living and sentient beings enjoy the blessings of life. The more a person reveals his spiritual powers by striving and becoming like God, the more he glorifies God (Matthew 5:16), and through this he achieves bliss, and vice versa. Hence, the weakening of the glory of God in man is the same as a decrease in perfections and bliss. On the contrary, the more a person is sanctified by the glory of God, the more he grows in perfection and rises in bliss. Because all have sinned, says the apostle, and are deprived of the glory of God (Rom. 3:23), that is, through sin they have lost primitive perfection and the heavenly bliss associated with it. Through sin, nature has submitted to vanity, groans and suffers; but when the power of sin is destroyed, it will be freed from slavery to corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God (Rom. 8:20-22). And the entire blessed eternal life of man is his constant elevation in perfection and bliss, or gradually filled with sanctification by the glory of God, ascension from glory to glory (2 Cor. 3:18). – With such a wondrous union, the Wise One united the goals of creation - the glory of God and the perfection and bliss of creatures. God is both their first cause and their last goal; but God is love, and everything that exists from Him and for Him is perfect and blessed by Himself. § 9. Perfection of creation The Universe was created by the Creator completely perfect, that is, corresponding to the purpose determined for it by the Creator. The creation of the Most Perfect cannot but be perfect. For if God is infinitely omnipotent, wise and good, then nothing could prevent Him from imparting proper perfection to His creation. And revelation shows that the world, at its beginning, actually corresponded to the creative thoughts about it. What was created in each of the six days of creation by the Creator Himself was recognized as good, and at the end of the six-day creation God saw everything that He had created, and behold, it was very good (Gen. 1:31). In a similar way, the Wise One testifies: He made everything beautiful in its time (Eccl. 3:11; cf. Pres. 11:25; Sir. 39:21), and that God rejoiced after the creation of the universe: rejoicing on His earthly circle, and my joy was with the sons of men (Proverbs 8:31). Even about the world in its present state, the apostle teaches: every creature of God is good (1 Tim. 4:4). According to the testimony of the same apostle, the world from the beginning of its creation has never ceased to show in itself, as in a mirror, the invisible God, His eternal power and Divinity, so that those who do not know God through the world are unrequited. (Rom.1:20). Jehovah Himself refers Job to animals and the earth as messengers of God’s perfections (Job 12:7–9). The psalmist depicts the world as a wonderful and majestic organ of the revelation of the glory (Ps. 18:2), wisdom (103:24) and goodness of God (144:9), and due to such a reflection of the perfections of God in the world, he points to it as the best school for people of true knowledge of God and worship of God (Ps. 86:8-10; 91:1-6; fn. Is. 40:26). But on the other hand, there is no idea in revelation that the present world would be the best possible world that God could create. On the contrary, it teaches that the present heaven and earth will pass away (Matthew 24:35; 2 Pet. 3:10, 12), that we will look forward to a new heaven and a new earth, in which dwells righteousness (2 Pet. 3:13; Rom. 8:20–21), that is, the best and most perfect world of the present. Created for the glory of God, the world was created for the bliss of creatures. The Creator, according to the images of sacred writers, really gave every creature the fullness of life, perfection, and well-being possible for it. The Father of mercies and God of all comfort (2 Cor. 1:3) richly gives us all things to enjoy (1 Tim. 6:17). The psalmist sings with delight the goodness of God, blessing the fertility of the earth (Ps. 65:10-14). Delighted by the manifestation of God's goodness in the world, he confesses: The Lord is good to everyone, and His compassion is in all His works (Ps. 145:9). Even in relation to the smallest and most insignificant creatures, God showed in the arrangement of His world protective love for their lives and needs (Matt. 10:29; 6:26; Wis. 11:25–27; Ps. 144:15–16, etc.). So, the world was created according to its purpose or perfect. In the world created by God, and created by divine goodness, there was and could not be evil; evil cannot be among the works of the Creator. 57 It is clear from this that if in the present world we see a whole series of phenomena of evil, we see the destructive actions of nature, the suffering of creatures, illness, sorrow, the lawlessness of man, the terrible dominion of death, then this evil did not appear along with creation, but happened later, did not appear from the essence of creatures, for there is nothing evil in the world by the very nature created by God (Prov. Isp. 31 questions. Last. Eastern Pat. 4 member), and therefore, the culprit thereof is not the Creator of the world. According to the revealed teaching, the appearance of evil in the material world and death are the generation and consequence of sin or evil in the proper sense, and are sent by God to heal sin, and sin or moral evil is the work of morally free beings who have abused their freedom contrary to the intentions of the Creator. The existence of evil phenomena in the world therefore relates to God not as the Creator, but only as the Provider of the world. This is how the ancient fathers and teachers of the church taught about the perfection of the primordial world and the origin of the evil phenomena observed in it today. That the world was created relatively perfect, that is, corresponding to its purpose and reflecting the perfections of the Creator to a certain extent (but not the best and most perfect of all possible worlds that God could create), they revealed this position mainly in the interpretations of the Sixth Day, when they pointed out the reflection of God's perfections observed in the world, the amazing completeness and diversity of life in it and the abundance of means for it, the beauty and expediency in the structure of the universe in general and its individual parts 58 . The same idea that evil appeared in the world subsequently, and not along with the creation of the world, and was not created by the Creator, but is a consequence of sin, was explained by the pastors of the ancient church mainly when denouncing the teaching of heretics (some of the Gnostics and Manichaeans), that the world is imperfect and full of evil from the very beginning, and that the culprit of evil in the world is either God himself or a special evil principle hostile to God. 59 It is clear from here how one should look at the teaching of the so-called. optimism and pessimism about the quality of world existence. According to the teachings of optimists (in ancient times Plato, in modern times Leibniz and his followers), the real world, as the work of the most perfect Creator, is the best of all possible worlds that could only be created by God. Evil in the world is a necessary phenomenon (in essence, it is not even evil); it exists because a perfect world itself is unthinkable without evil; if evil did not exist, the world would not be the best. Proponents of a pessimistic worldview (its main representatives in modern times are Schopenhauer and Hartmann), paying exclusive attention to the phenomenon of physical and especially moral evil, argue that evil and suffering are a necessary part of world existence and therefore the non-existence of the world is better than its existence. Happiness and bliss are unattainable for creatures capable of feeling and realizing it. Both views on the present state of the world obviously suffer from one-sidedness. According to the clear teaching of revelation, in the future, when all creation is freed from the slavery of corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God (Rom. 8:21), there will be a new heaven and a new earth (2 Pet. 3:13), from which it follows that the present world is not the best of all possible worlds. A world in which evil exists cannot be the best of worlds. Evil is an unnatural phenomenon, the necessity of which our moral consciousness cannot accept. For healthy thinking, it is strange to think that the world would be worse if there were no deceptions, crimes, hatred and other vices in it, as well as such natural disasters as thunderstorms, earthquakes, storms, fires, floods, diseases, etc. To think that God could not create any world better than the present one would mean recognizing the omnipotence of God as limited, and the assumption that He was obliged to choose to create only one best world of all possible worlds, is inconsistent with the concept of the all-perfect freedom of God's will. The perfection of the present world required by the concept of God should not consist in the fact that it should be the most perfect of all possible worlds, but that it should be arranged in accordance with its purpose and reflect in itself the perfections of the Creator, to the extent possible under the known conditions and laws of its existence, and this is the quality that our world has, as a purposefully and rationally arranged whole. 60 But, on the other hand, the view of pessimism is also extreme. The assertion that evil and suffering are a necessary lot of world existence, why the non-existence of the world is better than its existence, is tantamount to saying that the Creator of the world committed the greatest foolishness by creating the world and therefore He is not the highest wise being (Hartmann calls it “unconscious”). The position of pessimism, as if the sum of evil and suffering exceeds the sum of good and happiness, is also incorrect. According to experience, in the lives of individuals there are more happy states than disasters and suffering, which is why every person is attached to life and suicide is an exceptional and unnatural phenomenon (Eph. 5:29). The history of mankind, testifying to the gradual development and improvement of the world, shows that throughout the world there is a slow but constant preponderance of good over evil. The existence of a world where evil prevailed over good - the beginning of destruction and disorder - would have been impossible. But even if we admit that in the present state of the world evil and misfortune prevail over goodness and happiness, it does not follow from this that the very existence of the world is evil and that the non-existence of the world is better than its existence. The world in its present state is a place of education and achievement for people, and therefore serves only as a transitional step to another better and more perfect world expected in the future. 61 The one-sidedness of both optimism and pessimism shows that the correct view of the quality of the world should lie in the middle between these two extremes. This true view is contained in the revealed teaching about the world as a relatively perfect (although not the best of all possible worlds) creation of God, which, although it has lost part of its original perfections as a result of sin, does not cease to be relatively good and perfect in its present state. § 10. The order of creation of the world and the main types of creation Omnipotence, wisdom and love of God called into existence three kinds of creatures: the spiritual world, the material world and man. The order in which different types of creatures came into being can only be known from divine revelation. This is because the original origin of everything that exists is outside and above the realm of observation. In the revelation of the order of the world-making such a teaching is proposed. Before all other creatures, God created the invisible, spiritual world, the kingdom of disembodied spirits. Revelation does not tell us about the order of origin of the countless multitude of beings of the spiritual world, i.e., whether they were created simultaneously, or whether their various degrees gradually came into being - in an ascending or descending order. From some indications of Scripture (Job.38:7, Gen.1:1) it can only be concluded that the creation of the spiritual world was completed at the time when the creation of the sensory world began. After the creation of the kingdom of disembodied spirits, God created the sensory world, the history of the origin of which is set out at the beginning of the book. Genesis. The creation of the visible world took place in the order of ascent from less perfect forms of being to more perfect ones, from the creation of the world's primary substance, which was at the beginning in an unsettled, formless state, to the creation of man, the most perfect of the living beings of the visible world. The creation of the world ended with the creation of man (husband and wife), who by his bodily nature is adjacent to the sensual world, is its highest member, the crown of creation, and by soul - to the supersensible, spiritual world. It contains the contact and connection of two worlds - the world of pure spirits and the world of pure matter. In the revealed teaching about the order of world-making, therefore, no exclusive preference is given to either the so-called. the regressive theory of world formation (descent from better to worse), common in religious (especially in the religion of the ancient Persians and Egyptians) and philosophical teachings of the East, nor the progressive theory (ascent from worse to better), which appeared in ancient Greek philosophy and is dominant in modern natural science and philosophy. To a certain extent, it combines the main provisions of both theories. God, the most perfect being, who brought into existence many and varied creatures, thus, in His creative activity, was pleased to realize different ways of producing His creatures. Revealing in detail the doctrine of the origin of these main types of creation will be the subject of a particular doctrine of God, the Creator of the world. Let us present the teaching of revelation and the church about this in the order in which the creation of peace itself followed. Disclosure of different aspects of the general teaching about God - the Creator of the world, in addition to the systems of Dogmatics and partly Apologetics, can be found in the works of: Budrina E. A. prof. The doctrine of God as the Creator of the world (Prov. Sob. 1871, II). - Lebedeva A. The experience of philosophical, theological and natural scientific interpretation of the biblical dogma about the creation of the world (Reader. lyub. spiritual. project. 1871, I). - Himself. Did pagan antiquity have true concepts about the origin of the world (ibid., 1873, II, 1874, I–II]. Kudryavtseva V.D. The origin of the world. Materialistic atomism. Regressive and progressive theory of the origin of the world (Collected works. III volume 1 issue). - Boris the Archimandrite. On the beginning of the world (Pr. Ob. 1888 and in sec. ed.). – Golubinsky F. Speculative theology. 139–169 pp. – The wisdom and goodness of God. Writing 1. – Belyaeva A.D. Divine Love 1881 pp. Petropavlovsky Prot. (Read. pp. 1880, I and in a separate edition - In defense of the Christian faith against unbelief. Issue II. Moscow, 1897 - Ulritsi. Kaz. There is an opinion (by Strauss and other rationalists) that the expression from non-existents in the confession of the Maccabees is identical with τὸ μὴ ὄν (non-being) in the philosophy of Plato and Philo, for whom τὸ μὴ ὄν or τὰ μὴ ὂντα is of course qualityless and formless matter (ὕλην ἄμορφον), as a passive being, it is called by these philosophers “we do not dry” not in the proper sense, but only by comparison with the existence of God, - Who is given the name όντως ὤν i.e. who truly exists. But in the mouth of the Maccabean mother, who with these words excited her son to martyrdom for the faith, they could not have a meaning close to pagan teaching. This would be contrary to the purpose for which her words are presented by the writer of the book. And from a philological point of view, μὴ όντα and οὑκ ὂντα are not the same thing; the first means non-existence in a conditional sense, that is, in comparison with another being, truly existing, and the last means complete non-existence, nothing (Bishop Chrysapphus Rel. other world III vol. III p.). See prof. Cheltsova I. Ancient forms of symbols. St. Petersburg 1869 Shepherd Hermas, II book. 1 app. (Writer of the apostle husbands in the translation by Archpriest P. Preobrazhensky. 1895, 181 pages). Against heresies, book I, chapter 10. 1. Russian lane prot. P. Preobrazhensky 1868 On prescription against heretics, Chapters IX and XIII. (Tertullian’s work in Russian translation by E. Karneev. 1 part 158, 161 pages). St. Irenaeus, in the book. “Against Heresies” (esp. 2 books) refuted the false teachings of the Gnostics, Tertullian, defended the doctrine of the creation of the world in the works “Against Hermogenes” and “Against Marcion, who held dualistic views, and in op. “Against Valentitan” (translated by Korneev, 4 hours), blessed. Augustine, mainly in the book. “On the City of God” exposed pantheistic (IV book, chapters 12–13; VII book, 6, 29 and 30 chapters) and dualistic (XI book, chapters 21–23; XII book), St. Epiphanius in the so-called The “Panaria on Eighty Heresies”, outlining the opinions of ancient philosophers and heretics about the origin of the world, also shows their falsity. For a review of the ancient patristic teaching about God the Creator of the world in view of the indicated false teachings, see Bishop. Sylvester, Dogma. God. III vol. §§ 4–6. Theophilus, To Autolycus, II book. 4 ch., sn. 10 ch. Irin. Prot. heresy Book II Chapter X, 2 and 4. Lactation. Deities instructions, book II, chapter 9. Translation by E. Karneev. St. Petersburg 1848 135–138 pp. Afanas. alex. Sl. About the incarnation of God the Word 1 hour creative work. in Russian lane 81 pp. This is how the ancient teachers of the church resolved this objection. See eg. Zlat. On the book Life Dem.2:4. In view of the above objection to the doctrine of the creation of the world by God, it can also be noted that despite all the incomprehensibility of creation from nothing for us, the doctrine of creation is nevertheless not completely devoid of analogies and a kind of intelligibility that follows from this, or better yet, the conceivability of the subject. Some, although very distant, analogy of the origin of something from nothing can be seen in spiritual creativity, in the most perfect so-called. brilliant works of our mind and will in the field of science, art, and social life. Kudryavtseva V.D. Collection. composition III volume 1 issue. 310 pp. Such is the dualism of the ancient Greek philosophers: Anaxagoras (Υοῦς and omiomeria), Plato (Good and τὸ μὴ ὄν), Aristotle (form and substance), also Philo and others. In modern times, the most prominent representative of this teaching is D. S. Mill. Such is the dualism in the religion of Zoroaster (Ormuzd and Ahriman), in the teachings of the Gnostics (Syrian) and especially in Manichaeism, in modern times - in Bel (1705). This is a common thought to all pantheistic teachings, although it is revealed differently in the so-called systems. emanation (ex manare) or evolution - in Brahminism, among the Neoplatonists, Gnostics, Plotinus, Schelling, and Hegel, otherwise in the systems of immanence (in manere) - among the Eleatics and Spinoza. Such contradictions of pantheistic cosmology also explain why pantheism was usually resolved and is being resolved, or the so-called. pancosmism (everything is God) - a transitional step to materialism, or acosmism (God is everything), taking external measures for something illusory, as in Brahmanism and in the teachings of extreme idealism. ) In ancient times, in a materialistic sense, the question of the origin of the world was resolved by the first Greek philosophers of the Ionic school - (Thales, Anaximenes, Anaximander, Diogenes, Heraclitus, Empedocles with their teaching about the four main elements of the world), especially Leucippus and Democritus (5th century BC), the founders of atomism, whose views were shared by Epicurus (3rd century). In the 18th century French encyclopedists preached materialism: Diderot d'Alembert, Lamettrie, Holbach, etc. - In modern times, especially Feuerbach, Focht, Malechott, Buchner, etc. were the defenders of materialism; Materialism has widely penetrated into the field of natural sciences - astronomy, geology, biology, zoology, history, sociology and anthropology, etc. This is the general and basic position of materialism about the origin of the world in general, although it was not always carried out and presented in the same way at different times. It underlies all particular theories proposed and proposed by materialism to explain the origin of different types of finite being, for example. to explain the formation of celestial bodies, and in particular our planet, plant and animal life, and humans. Right Confession 1 hour response to the question 33. Wed. Bl. Augustine, On the City of God, Book XI. Chapter 6 Confession, XI book. 13–15 ch. Domaskina, Exact exposition. right faith, II book. Chapter 1 Based on these provisions, Origen argued that there was no time when there were no created beings at all, and that the present world was preceded by many other worlds, in sequential succession one after another, just as new worlds may appear in the future. (On the beginnings, I book. 2; III book. 5). Origen's opinion about the creation of many worlds in ancient times was accepted by many of his admirers, but it always remained only a private opinion; the ancient fathers and teachers of the church did not share this as an arbitrary opinion, and in their writings they did not express anything similar to the teachings of Origen. Methodius made a detailed refutation of Origen's teaching about the eternity of peacemaking from the ancient teachers of the church, to her. Patarsky, in op. Περὶ γενητῶν. Several extracts from this work have been preserved by the patriarch. Photius (Bibl. cod. 235). For the Russian translation of these extracts, see ed. prof. E. Lovyagina. St. Methodius, bishop and martyr, father of the church of the 3rd century. A complete collection of his creations. St. Petersburg 1877 241–251 pp. In 543, Origen’s teaching on creation was condemned by the church at a private council under Patr. Mine. The Edict of Justinian, with a list of condemned opinions of Origen, in particular his opinion on creation, is added to the acts of the V universal. cathedral (Acts of the assembly in Russian translation Kaz. 1868, vol. 460 pp.). Golubinsky F. prot. Speculative Theology 163 pp. Popova V. Modern natural science about the origin of the universe. St. Petersburg 1872 Ed. edited by prot. I. Zarkevich. 20–21 pp. Rozhdestvensky N. prof. Apologetics II vol. 197–200 pp. Kudryavtseva-Platonova V.D. From readings on cosmology (Works. III volume 1 issue, 293–294 pp.) Tertul. Prot. Germog. IV, Prot. Mark 1:15. Gregory the Theologian. Pesnop. sacrament., words. 4. (Works by Grieg. V. in Russian translation. IV vol. 228–229 pp.). To the same question, a more ancient teacher, St. Irenaeus, denouncing the Gnostics, who recognized themselves as able to penetrate into the mysteries of God, to know what is inaccessible to ordinary people, replied: “no Scripture has revealed to us what God did before this, that is, the creation of the world. Therefore, the answer to this is subject to God, and we should not come up with stupid, unfounded and blasphemous explanations” (Prot. Heresy. II book. XXVIII, 3). But such condemnation by St. Irenaeus of human curiosity was caused by the properties of Gnostic explanations - “stupid” and “blasphemous." Later, Blessed Augustine, touching on the same question, wrote: “What answer should I give to those who ask me: “What did God do before He created heaven and earth? I will not answer them as I once answered, they say, one cunning man got away.” a joke from the difficulty of an impossible question. “God threatened,” the answer said, “with eternal torment to those who dare to experience the depths of incomprehensible mysteries” (similar to this is Luther’s answer to the same question, that God, before the creation of the world, was in the forest and cut twigs for those who ask such questions). “It’s a different matter to argue,” continues Bl. Augustine, and otherwise scoff: no, I don’t want to answer like that. I would sooner admit that I don’t know, what I don’t know, than resort to caustic witticisms in order to arrogantly laugh at those who propose difficult questions, and get off with an evasive answer” (Confessions XI book. 12 chapter - Augustine’s works in Russian translation, part 1, 337–338 pp.). He himself answered this question like this: God is the “Creator of times,” and therefore it is impossible to talk about the existence of time before the creation of heaven and earth. “But just as there was no time before the creation of heaven and earth, is there a question: what (God) did then? Even then it is not conceivable without time” (ibid., ch. 13–14). See papr. Afanasy has Alex. To Serapion, 1 and 3 last. (3 hours 48–50, 75 pages in Russian translation), Ephraim Scr. on Genesis 1:1 (6 parts 301 pages in translation), - Epiphany. Sl. about faith, 14 (5 parts, 339 pages in Russian translation), etc. Vasily V. About St. Spirit, 16 chapters, Prog. Eunomius, V book. About the Holy Spirit of Creation. Vasil. V. in Russian lane III part 234–235, 157, 105 pp. Gregory the Bogosl. Sl. 38 and 45 (Tvor. Grig. B. - in Russian translation. III part. 240 pages and IV part. 157 pages). Sl. 34, – to Russian. lane III part. creative work. Gr. B., 189 pp. I. Damascene calls God the Father “the source who gives birth and produces the hidden good in Him”, the Son “by the power of the Father, who pre-organizes the creation of everything”, the Holy Spirit - “the completer of the creation of everything”, “the finishing power” (Toch. ed. ver. I book. 1 chapter). For more details, see prof. Belyaeva L.D. Divine Love. Ed. 2, 1884 174–180 pp. Vasil. IN . To Amphilochius, about the Holy Spirit. 8 and 16 ch. Sn. Irin. Prot. heresy Book V XVIII, 2. “God saw everything before it came into existence,” says St. I. Damascus, imagining in His mind from eternity; and each thing receives its existence at a certain time, as a result of His eternal, with the desire of a united thought, which is predestination, image and destiny” (Accurate exposition of faith, I, book 9, chapter 9; book on icons, page 3). Therefore, St. Augustine teaches, before its creation everything both existed and did not exist - existed in the knowledge of God, did not exist in its nature" (On the book of Genesis, letters V book., 18 chapter. Sn. Irin. Prot. heresy. II book. 3 chapter - Orig. On the beginnings, I book. 2 chapter 2, Dionysus Areops. On names Bozhikh, V, 8 and others). The prototypes according to which God created the world, according to ancient patristic teaching, are obviously not the same as the ideas of Plato, which God allegedly produced outside of Himself and which He looked at every time He intended to create something. Damascene, Exposition. faith, II, 2. Cf. Gregory the Theologian’s above reasoning (§ 6). Blazh. Theodoret argues: “God does not need anything, but He, being an abyss of goodness, deigned to grant existence to non-existents” (On the book of Genesis. Question 4). The same thought was expressed by St. Afanasy V. in Sl. about the incarnation and Prot. pagan – (I part in Russian translation 83. 68 pages), bl. Augustine, (On the city of God. XI, 24), etc. Here, by the way, is the answer to the objection “how could God create the world or man out of love for them, if before creation there was nothing, and therefore there was nothing to love.” The world, created in time, could have been the object of God’s love even before its creation, for God from the ages had the thought of it as a reflection of His perfections, constituting the object of His love. However, the expressions themselves - “before” and “after” are not applicable to God, as independent of the conditions of time. “The Creator is essentially good, the Eastern patriarchs teach, therefore everything that He created, He created beautiful, and can never be the Creator of evil.” (Last eastern patrol. 4 members). See the interpretation on the Six Days of Vasily V., Chrysostom, Ambrose, Gregory of Nyssa, Ephraim the Syrian and others. See eg. Tertullian, Prot. Marcion and Prot. Hermogenes, - Vasily V. God is not the author of evil (Demon 9, IV vol. in Russian translation), - Augustine, Prot. Manichaeans, about the city of God. XII, 1–6 chapters; XIII, 14; Damascus. Accur. izl. ver IV, 20, etc. They may ask: why didn’t God immediately create the best and most perfect world? Of course, God could have created such a world, for nothing is impossible for the omnipotence of God (see Part I, pp. 150–153), but God, as Tertullian noted, does not do what he could only do, or whatever we would like, but what he wants, in accordance with the reasonable thoughts of His most perfect mind (Prot. Praxea, 10). That is why God, at a certain time, created this one world, and not another, although he could have, notes St. Chrysostom, to create thousands and an infinite number of such worlds (On Ev. John, V demon. 3). For a more detailed analysis of the views of optimism and pessimism, see prof. V. D. Kudryavtseva. Initial foundations of philosophy. 1895 348–356 pp. You might be interested in: