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| God's Attribute of Goodness Considered as Natural; The God of Marcion Found Wanting Herein. It Came Not to Man's Rescue When First Wanted. PREVIOUS SECTION - NEXT SECTION - HELP
Chapter
XXII.—God’s Attribute of Goodness Considered as Natural;
The God of Marcion Found Wanting Herein. It Came Not to Man’s
Rescue When First Wanted.
But how shall (this) Antichrist be fully
overthrown unless we relax our defence by mere prescription,2579
2579 In his book,
De Præscrip. Hæret., [cap. xv.] Tertullian had
enjoined that heretics ought not to be argued with, but to be met with
the authoritative rule of the faith. He here proposes to forego
that course. | and give ourselves scope for rebutting all
his other attacks? Let us therefore next take the very person of God
Himself, or rather His shadow or phantom,2580
2580 Marcion’s
Docetic doctrine of Christ as having only appeared in
human shape, without an actual incarnation, is indignantly confuted by
Tertullian in his De Carne Christi, c.v. | as
we have it in Christ, and let Him be examined by that condition which
makes Him superior to the Creator. And undoubtedly there will come to
hand unmistakeable rules for examining God’s goodness. My first
point, however, is to discover and apprehend the attribute, and then to
draw it out into rules. Now, when I survey the subject in its aspects
of time, I nowhere descry it2581
2581 That is, the principle
in question—the bonitas Dei. | from the beginning
of material existences, or at the commencement of those causes, with
which it ought to have been found, proceeding thence to do2582 whatever had to be done. For there was death
already, and sin the sting of death, and that malignity too of the
Creator, against which the goodness of the other god should have been
ready to bring relief; falling in with this as the primary rule of the
divine goodness (if it were to prove itself a natural agency),
at once coming as a succour when the cause for it began. For in God all
things should be natural and inbred, just like His own condition
indeed, in order that they may be eternal, and so not be accounted
casual2583 and extraneous, and
thereby temporary and wanting in eternity. In God, therefore, goodness
is required to be both perpetual and unbroken,2584
such as, being stored up and kept ready in the treasures of His natural
properties, might precede its own causes and material developments; and
if thus preceding, might underlie2585
every first material cause, instead of looking at it from a
distance,2586 and standing aloof
from it.2587 In short, here too
I must inquire, Why his2588
2588 That is,
Marcion’s god’s. | goodness did not
operate from the beginning? no less pointedly than when we inquired
concerning himself, Why he was not revealed from the very first? Why,
then, did it not? since he had to be revealed by his goodness if he had
any existence. That God should at all fail in power must not be
thought, much less that He should not discharge all His natural
functions; for if these were restrained from running their course, they
would cease to be natural. Moreover, the nature of God Himself knows
nothing of inactivity. Hence (His goodness) is reckoned as having
a beginning,2589 if it acts. It will
thus be evident that He had no unwillingness to exercise His goodness
at any time on account of His nature. Indeed, it is impossible that He
should be unwilling because of His nature, since that so directs itself
that it would no longer exist if it ceased to act. In
Marcion’s god, however, goodness ceased from operation at some
time or other. A goodness, therefore, which could thus at any time have
ceased its action was not natural, because with natural properties such
cessation is incompatible. And if it shall not prove to be natural, it
must no longer be believed to be eternal nor competent to Deity;
because it cannot be eternal so long as, failing to be natural, it
neither provides from the past nor guarantees for the future any means
of perpetuating itself. Now as a fact it existed not from the
beginning, and, doubtless, will not endure to the end. For it is
possible for it to fail in existence some future2590 time or other, as it has failed in some
past2591 period. Forasmuch, then, as the goodness of
Marcion’s god failed in the beginning (for he did not from the
first deliver man), this failure must have been the effect of will
rather than of infirmity. Now a wilful suppression of goodness will be
found to have a malignant end in view. For what malignity is so
great as to be unwilling to do good when one can, or to thwart2592 what is useful, or to permit injury? The
whole description, therefore, of Marcion’s Creator will have to
be transferred2593 to his new god, who
helped on the ruthless2594 proceedings of the
former by the retardation of his own goodness. For whosoever has it in
his power to prevent the happening of a thing, is accounted responsible
for it if it should occur. Man is condemned to death for tasting the
fruit of one poor tree,2595 and thence proceed
sins with their penalties; and now all are perishing who yet never saw
a single sod of Paradise. And all this your better god either is
ignorant of, or else brooks. Is it that2596 he
might on this account be deemed the better, and the Creator be
regarded as all that
the worse? Even if this were his purpose he would be malicious enough,
for both wishing to aggravate his rival’s obloquy by permitting
His (evil) works to be done, and by keeping the world harrassed by the
wrong. What would you think of a physician who should encourage a
disease by withholding the remedy, and prolong the danger by delaying
his prescription, in order that his cure might be more costly and more
renowned? Such must be the sentence to be pronounced against
Marcion’s god: tolerant of evil, encouraging wrong, wheedling
about his grace, prevaricating in his goodness, which he did not
exhibit simply on its own account, but which he must mean to exhibit
purely, if he is good by nature and not by acquisition,2597 if he is supremely good in
attribute2598 and not by
discipline, if he is God from eternity and not from Tiberius, nay (to
speak more truly), from Cerdon only and Marcion. As the case now
stands,2599
2599 Nunc. [Comp.
chapter xv. supra, p. 282.] | however, such a god
as we are considering would have been more fit for Tiberius, that the
goodness of the Divine Being might be inaugurated in the world under
his imperial sway!E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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