Chapter 4 (part 3)

7.) "We cannot reasonably suppose any formation or differentiation to have existed in the eternal One from which, or according to which (formation) something could have been made; for if such a form, or predisposition to making a form, had existed, there would have been another cause, besides God, from which the form would have resulted, and then there would have been something else (another god), and not the one only and eternal God." (Baptism, i. 1.) "Creation is nothing else but a revelation of the all-essential, unfathomable God, and whatever exists in His p. 93 own eternal evolution, which is without a beginning, is also in that creation. But the latter is in regard to God what an apple that grows upon a tree is to the tree. The apple is not the tree, but grows out of the power of the tree. Likewise all things have their origin in divine desire, and that desire caused them to enter into being. In the beginning there was nothing to produce them, except the mystery of eternal generation (evolution)." ( Signature , xvi. 1.) "Imagine a mother (a womb) having the seed within herself. As long as she contains the seed as such, it belongs to herself, but when it becomes a child then is the seed not hers, but it is the property of the child. Thus it is with the angels. They have all been configurated out of the divine seed; but after this has been done, each one has its own corporeal being to itself." ( Aurora , iv. 34.) "The reason why the eternal and unchangeable God has created the world is an unfathomable mystery; it can only be said that He did it in His love." ( Hamberger .) God, being pure knowledge, does not require to have recourse to reasoning, for the purpose of attaining an object; He being Himself His own subject and object, self-sufficient and eternal. We can, therefore, only say that He creates; because He is an ever-flowing fountain of love, in the same sense as the sun shines; because he is an everlasting source of light. "How it came to happen that God stirred to produce creation, while He Himself is unchangeable, cannot be discovered, and an attempt to do so would merely produce a confusion of mind." ( Menschwerdung , i. 2, 5.) "We cannot tell how it happened that that which stood eternally in the essentiality of God entered into motion, because there is nothing that could have caused God to move, and the will of God is eternal and unchangeable. We can only say that the Three was p. 94 desirous of having children of its own kind." ( Forty Questions , i. 273.) The world could not have been made as it exists now, directly out of the purely divine state of being. In its material aspect it is material and not spiritual. God is unchangeable and independent of external conditions (which do not exist for Him); but the manifestations of His power change according to the conditions that are caused by their mutual relations. Thus the light of the sun remains always the same; but it gives various hues to the flowers, according to their own individual qualities. "No creature can issue from the purely divine state of being, because this state has neither cause nor beginning, nor can it be brought into a beginning." ( Grace , viii. 45.) "Within the light and the heart of God, as such, there can be nothing created; because the light is the end of nature and has no quality. Therefore it cannot change or be made into anything, but remains for ever the same in eternity." ( Three Principles , x. 41.) Nevertheless it is the Triune God that created all things out of eternal nature.