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Theology - Creation: Multiplicity

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For Athanasius, creation’s multiplicity is not a defect but part of its glory. No created thing supplies all need; no single light illuminates day and night. So there are many lights. Each light is its own essence, but these essences cooperate to fill what is lacking in the others. The same goes for other features of creation: “Thus too the earth is not for all things, but for the fruits only, and to be a ground to tread on for the living things that inhabit it. And the firmament is to divide between waters and waters, and to be a place to set the stars in. So also fire and water, with other things, have been brought into being to be the constituent parts of bodies; and in short no one thing is alone, but all things that are made, as if members of each other, make up as it were one body, namely, the world.”

While the things of the world are multiple, the service is “one and common” (mia kai koine), and they harmonize together in a cosmic leitourgia.

Conversely: If creation’s diversity makes up for lack in each part, and God has no lack, then God is in Himself, as one God, all that the creation is in its multiplicity. The light of God is the infinite light of sun and moon and stars and all else.

posted by Peter J. Leithart on Wednesday, November 11, 2009 at 11:29 am

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Theology - Creation: Multiplicity

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