Aspects of Patristic Cosmology

Abstract

GIVEN THE WEALTH of cosmological and metaphysical insights emanating classical Hellenic philosophy, notably with the PreSocratics, Plato, Aristotle, and the Neoplatonists, it was inevitable (and, one might add, providential) that the early Christian theologians (known generically in the Orthodox and Catholic traditions as the Church Fathers), working to a large extent within the intellectual ambit of Hellenism, would employ aspects of that philosophical legacy in their exposition of Christian doctrine. This conceptual appropriation was further necessitated by the relative lack of cosmological content in the Christian scriptures, with the notable exception of the first chapter of Genesis. The most fundamental distinction in Patristic cosmology is that between the uncreated (Greek aktistou), which refers to God alone, and the created (Greek ktistou). In its turn the created universe consists of spiritual and material spheres, the former including the heavenly beings usually called angels. A major implication of the distinction between the uncreated and the created is that the human being, who is created, cannot by nature know God, the uncreated. (1) In the patristic understanding, God is the only source of the entire created order: visible and invisible, intelligible and sensible, rational and irrational, and formed and formless. Thus all things to a greater or lesser extent reflect an aspect of the Godhead. (2) I will proceed to sketch salient aspects of the patristic cosmology in both the Greek and Latin traditions. Creation Nothing An axiomatic concept in Christian theology is the doctrine of God's creation nothing (Latin creatio ex nihilo), although this is not explicitly taught in the Judaic and Christian scriptures. Instead, in the Genesis account God is depicted as commanding chaos to develop into order. (3) However, the Platonist teaching that God creates the world of formless (ex amorphou hyles) is echoed in the apocryphal book, Wisdom of Solomon (II : 17). The first scriptural intimation concerning creation out of nothing is found in the apocryphal book Second Maccabees (7:28), as interpreted by Origen in his Commentary on John. Referring to the heaven and the earth and all things therein, the text affirms that God made them from nonexistent things--(ex ouk onton). (4) According to the Hebrew scriptures, nothing can creation or God, for time and space are presupposed by the creation. This implies that before creation or outside God there is only the nothingness out of which he creates. (5) The New Testament is relatively silent on cosmology, except to declare that Christ is the Logos through whom God creates and sustains the cosmos (e.g., John 1:3, 10; Colossians 1:16-17). Paul does mention in his Letter to the Romans (4:17) that God calls into existence the things that do not exist (kalountos ta me onta os onta). Here the Apostle to the Gentiles indicates that the cause of the world is outside the world, with only the will of God making the world's being possible. (6) Or, stated in ontological terms, creation entails a movement non-being to being. Among the second-century Christian thinkers known as the Apologists, the Platonist notion that God creates out of formless matter was held by Justin Martyr. He found scriptural support for this in Genesis 1:1-2, in a reading that conforms to the Septuagint text. (7) Justin's younger contemporary Theophilus of Antioch moved closer to an affirmation of creatio ex nihilo. He taught that God made all things out of nothing and rejected the notion of uncreated, preexistent matter as in Hellenic philosophy. Instead, God first created (formless) matter and then fashioned the world it. (8) Similarly, in the Latin tradition both Tatian and Augustine subscribed to the notion of pre-existent matter, which was itself created by God. (9) Towards the end of the second century, Clement of Alexandria argued that according to both Genesis and Plato's dialogue Timaeus God creates the world out of formless matter, which is initially in a state of relative non-being (me on) until God grants being to it. …