1 :2). The Manichees find fault with this by saying: "So was God in darkness
42 On Genesis: A Refutation of the Manichees they are seeking to know the causes of God's will, when God's will is itself the cause of everything there is. After all, if God's will has a cause, there is some thing that is there before God's will and takes precedence over it, which it is impious to believe. So then, anyone who says, "Why did God make heaven and earth?" is to be given this answer: "Because he wished to." lt is God's will, you see, that is the cause of heaven and earth, and that is why God's will is greater than heaven and earth. Anyone though who goes on to say, "Why did he wish to make heaven and earth?" is looking for something greater than God's will is; but nothing greater can be found.
So let mere human beings put a curb on their brashness, and not go seeking what doesn't exist, in case they thereby fail to find what does. And if anyone desires to know God's will, they should first become friends with God, because anyone wishing to know a human person's will without being their friend would find everybody mocking their shameless folly. Nobody, however, becomes a friend of God except by total integrity of life and conduct, and by means of that end of the commandment of which the apostle says: Now the end of the commandment is love comingfrom a pure heart and a good conscience and a faith unfeigned (1 Tm 1:5).
God did not make heaven and earth out ofany pre-existing material, and was not in darkness before he made the light
3, 5. As for what follows in the book of Genesis: Now the earth was invisible and shapeless (Gn 1 :2), the Manichees find fault with it like this; they say: "How did God make heaven and earth in the beginning, if the earth was already there, invisible and shapeless?" So it is that by being keener on casting slurs on the divine scriptures than on getting to know them, they fail to understand even the most obvious things. What, I ask you, could be said more clearly than what we have here: ln the beginning God made heaven and earth; now the earth was invisible and shapeless? This obviously means: In the beginning God made heaven and earth; now the very earth which God made was invisible and shape less, before God distributed the forms of all things in their proper places and settings, with their duly arranged differences; before he said: Let light be made, and Let a solid structure be made, and Let the waters be collected together, and Let the dry landappear (Gn 1 :3.6.9), and the rest of it which is set out in the same book in such a simple order that even little children can grasp it. Yet it all contains such great mysteries that those who have learned them either bewail the futile folly of all heretics, considering they are human, orfind it a source ofinno cent merriment because they are so self-important.
6. lt continues in the same book: And there was darkness over the abyss (Gn
1 :2). The Manichees find fault with this by saying: "So was God in darkness