IN GOD THERE IS ONLY ONE ACTIVITY, THAT OF BEING GOD
We have a great variety of faculties and habits. They produce a great variety of actions. These actions effect a multiplicity of dissimilar works. Thus the faculties of seeing, hearing, tasting, touching, moving, digesting, understanding, willing and the habits of speaking, walking, playing, singing, sewing, jumping, swimming are quite different from one another. So, also, the actions and works which proceed from these faculties and habits are very different.
It is not the same in God. In him, there is only one most simple, infinite perfection. In this perfection, there is only a single very unique and very pure act. Thus to speak in a holier and wiser way, God is a single, very supremely unique and very uniquely supreme perfection. This perfection is a single act, very purely simple and most simply pure. It is nothing else than the divine essence itself. As a consequence, it is always permanent and eternal. Yet, puny creatures that we are, we speak of the actions of God as if he is doing everyday a great variety and multiplicity of actions, though we know the contrary. We are compelled to do so, Theotimus, by our weakness. We know to speak only in the way we understand. We understand in the way things usually happen among us. In natural things, the diversity of works is scarcely produced except through many actions. We see so many different works, a great variety of products and innumerable number of achievements of the divine power. For this reason, it seems to us that this variety is caused by so many acts as there are different effects which we see. We speak of them in the same way as it is easy. We speak of them according to our usual practice and the habit we have of understanding things. In this, we do not offend truth. Even though in God there is no manifold activity, but only a single act which is that of being God this act is always very perfect. So it contains within itself, the strength and power of all these acts which would seem to be necessary to cause all the diversity of effects which we see.
God says just one single word. By its power, the sun, the moon and the countless hosts of stars were made in an instant with their differences in brightness, movement and power:
Let him praise the name ofthe Lord,
for he commanded and they were created (Ps 148:5)[1]
A single word of God filled the air with birds, the sea with fishes. It made all the plants and animals which we see appear on earth. The sacred historian adapts himself to our way of understanding. So he tells us that God often repeated the all powerful word: Let it be made during the days of the creation of the world (Gen 1). Yet, strictly speaking, this word is utterly unique. So David called it: a breath or spirit of the divine mouth (Ps 33:6). It means: a single act of his infinite will. This act spreads very powerfully its energy in the variety of created things. Hence we think of this act as multiplied into as many differences and as many effects as there are. In fact, there is only one very unique and supremely simple act. So St. Chrysostom points out that Moses described the creation of the world in many words. But the glorious St. John does it in one single word: By the Word, that is, by this eternal Word who is the Son of God all things came into being (Jn 1:3). This word, then, Theotimus, being utterly simple and most unique, produced all the distinctions of things. Remaining unchanging, it produced all changes that are good. Since he is everlasting in his eternity, he gives succession, change, order, rank and season to all things.
I request you, on the one hand, to imagine a painter who paints a picture of the birth of the Saviour. I am writing this during these days dedicated to this holy mystery. No doubt he will use thousands of strokes of his brush. He will take not only days but weeks and months to complete the painting. It depends on the number of persons and other things which he wants to depict. On the other hand, imagine a printer of pictures. He puts his paper on a plate engraved with the mystery of the nativity. Then he gives a single stroke of the press.s With this single stroke, Theoti- mus, he will complete his whole work. In an instant, he will draw out a picture, proportionate in size, beautifully representing all that is to be envisaged in keeping with sacred history. Though he made only a single movement, still his work will depict a great number of persons and many other details quite distinctly, each according to its order, its rank, its place, in its distance and proportion. One who does not know the technique will be very surprised to see emerge from a single act such a variety of effects. Similarly, Theotimus, nature, like a painter multiplies and diversifies its acts in proportion to the works which are different. It takes a long time to produce great effects. But God, like a printer, has given existence to the whole variety of creatures which have been, are, and will be by a single act of his all powerful will. He draws out from his idea, as if from a well-engraved plate, this marvellous difference of persons and other things which follow one another in seasons, in ages, in centuries, each according to its order as it should be. This supreme unity of the divine act is opposed to confusion and disorder. But it is not against distinction and variety which it makes use of to create beauty, reducing all differences and varieties to proportion, proportion to order, and order to the unity of the world which contains the whole of created things both visible and invisible. All these taken together are called the universe. It may be, because all their differences are reduced to unity, like saying “unidiverse", that is, unique and diverse, unity with diversity and diversity with unity.
In short, God’s supreme, divine unity differentiates all. Its unchanging eternity gives change to all things. It is so because the perfection of this unity transcends all differentiation and variety. It has the power to give being to the whole diversity of created perfections and the energy to produce them. As a proof of this, Scripture relates that God at the beginning said: Let there be lights in the dome of the sky to separate the day from the night; and let them be for signs and for seasons and for days and years (Gn 1:14).5 We see even now this perpetual rotation and sequence of time and seasons. It will last till the end of the world to teach us that, A word ofhis commandments suffices for all these movements (Ps 148.5). So also, the eternal will of his divine Majesty extends its power from century to century and from age to age for all that has been, is and will be eternally. Nothing has being except by his utterly unique, supremely simple, eternal divine Act to which be honour and glory. Amen (1 Tim 1:17).
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[1] NRSV. A literal translation of the text is: He said, and suddenly they were made, all these works so perfect (See AE IV, p. 91)