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For what else is to be understood by that invariable refrain, "And
God saw that it was good," than the approval of the work in its
design, which is the wisdom of God? For certainly God did not in
the actual achievement of the work first learn that it was good, but,
on the contrary, nothing would have been made had it not been first
known by Him. While, therefore, He sees that that is good which,
had He not seen it before it was made, would never have been made, it
is plain that He is not discovering, but teaching that it is good.
Plato, indeed, was bold enough to say that, when the universe was
completed, God was, as it were, elated with joy. And Plato was
not so foolish as to mean by this that God was rendered more blessed by
the novelty of His creation; but he wished thus to indicate that the
work now completed met with its Maker's approval, as it had while yet
in design. It is not as if the knowledge of God were of various
kinds, knowing in different ways things which as yet are not, things
which are, and things which have been. For not in our fashion does
He look forward to what is future, nor at what is present, nor back
upon what is past; but in a manner quite different and far and
profoundly remote from our way of thinking. For He does not pass from
this to that by transition of thought, but beholds all things with
absolute unchangeableness; so that of those things which emerge in
time, the future, indeed, are not yet, and the present are now, and
the past no longer are; but all of these are by Him comprehended in
His stable and eternal presence. Nether does He see in one fashion
by the eye, in another by the mind, for He is not composed of mind
and body; nor does His present knowledge differ from that which it
ever was or shall be, for those variations of time, past, present,
and future, though they alter our knowledge, do not affect His,
"with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning." Neither
is there any growth from thought to thought in the conceptions of Him
in whose spiritual vision all things which He knows are at once
embraced. For as without any movement that time can measure. He
Himself moves all temporal things, so He knows all times with a
knowledge that time cannot measure. And therefore He saw that what
He had made was good, when He saw that it was good to make it. And
when He saw it made, He had not on that account a twofold nor any way
increased knowledge of it; as if He had less knowledge before He made
what He saw. For certainly He would not be the perfect worker He
is, unless His knowledge were so perfect as to receive no addition
from His finished works. Wherefore, if the only object had been to
inform us who made the light, it had been enough to say, "God made
the light;" and if further information regarding the means by which it
was made had been intended, it would have sufficed to say, "And God
said, Let there be light, and there was light," that we might know
not only that God had made the world, but also that He had made it by
the word. But because it was right that three leading truths regarding
the creature be intimated to us, viz., who made it, by what means,
and why, it is written, "God said, Let there be light, and there
was light. And God saw the light that it was good." If, then, we
ask who made it, it was "God." If, by what means, He said
"Let it be," and it was. If we ask, why He made it, "it was
good." Neither is there any author more excellent than God, nor any
skill more efficacious than the word of God, nor any cause better than
that good might be created by the good God. This also Plato has
assigned as the most sufficient reason for the creation of the world,
that good works might be made by a good God; whether he read this
passage, or, perhaps, was informed of these things by those who had
read them, or, by his quick-sighted genius, penetrated to things
spiritual and invisible through the things that are created, or was
instructed regarding them by those who had discerned them.
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