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| Tertullian Pushes His Opponent into a Dilemma.
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Chapter
XIV.—Tertullian Pushes His Opponent into a Dilemma.
Now, if it be also argued, that although Matter
may have afforded Him the opportunity, it was still His own will which
led Him to the creation of good creatures, as having detected6264
what was good in matter—although this,
too, be a discreditable supposition6265
—yet, at
any rate, when He produces evil likewise out of the same (Matter), He
is a servant to Matter, since, of course,6266
it
is not of His own accord that He produces this too, having nothing else
that He can do than to effect creation out of an evil
stock6267
—unwillingly,
no doubt, as being
good; of necessity, too, as being unwilling; and as an act of
servitude, because from necessity. Which, then, is the worthier
thought, that He created evil things of necessity, or of His own
accord? Because it was indeed of necessity that He created them, if out
of Matter; of His own accord, if out of nothing. For you are now
labouring in vain when you try to avoid making God the Author of evil
things; because, since He made all things of Matter, they will have to
be ascribed to Himself, who made them, just because6268
He made them. Plainly the interest of the
question, whence He made all things, identifies itself with (the
question), whether He made all things out of nothing; and it matters
not whence He made all things, so that He made all things thence,
whence most glory accrued to Him.6269
| 6269 We subjoin the
original of this sentence: “Plane sic interest unde fecerit ac si
de nihilo fecisset, nec interest uned fecerit, ut inde fecerit unde eum
magis decuit.” | Now, more
glory accrued to Him from a creation of His own will than from one of
necessity; in other words, from a creation out of nothing, than from
one out of Matter. It is more worthy to believe that God is free, even
as the Author of evil, than that He is a slave. Power, whatever it be,
is more suited to Him than infirmity.6270
If
we thus even admit that matter had nothing good in it, but that the
Lord produced whatever good He did produce of His own power, then some
other questions will with equal reason arise. First, since there was no
good at all in Matter, it is clear that good was not made of
Matter, on the express ground indeed that Matter did not possess it.
Next, if good was not made of Matter, it must then have
been made of God; if not of God, then it must have been made of
nothing.—For this is the alternative, on Hermogenes’ own
showing.6271
| 6271 Secundum Hermogenis
dispositionem. | E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
|
