90. conf. 11.29.39: "donec in te confluam purgatus et liquidus igne amoris tui";
30 Creation as the Unifying Prologue as the one for whom the world was made.86 The conclusion to the Confessions also points us toward a similar ecclesial telos of creation. When Augustine peers into the mysteries of creation, he looks at all things in the Word and there sees a multiplicity of goods collected into the church, which God "predestined before time began, when there was neither morning nor evening."87 All these living things thus point to one purpose: the eternal sabbath, namely, that perfect peace without end [pacem quietis, pacem sabbati, pacem sine uespera].88 A foreigner in the distention of fallen creation, Augustine knows his true rest, his only true happiness, will come by clinging closely to God and he accordingly depicts this caelum caeli as a pure love clinging to the only true God [casto amore cohaerentem deo uero]. As he conveys, "This order of creation is God's house, neither terrestrial nor some massive celestial building, but a spiritual structure which shares [God's] eternity, and is unstained forever."89 Only in this celestial domus can created persons be purged and made molten by the fire of God's love, and thus be able to flow into the divine.90 Precisely how this communion of praise effects this sort of union will be the topic of chapter 5, where we shall return to the nature and the purpose of God's church as the ultimate purpose of created existence.
In positing such a communal adherence to God as the purpose of creation, Augustine must argue that creatures made in God's image cannot be perfected simply in the natural, visible order. Persons cannot find rest in anything derived and
86. Cf. Shepherd of Hermas, vision 2.8 (II.4) 1. 87. conf. 13.34.49; Boulding, Confessions, 378. 88. conf. 13.35.50; CCL 27.272. 89. conf. 12.15.19; Boulding, Confessions, 322: "Haec est domus dei non terrena neque ulla caelesti mole corporea, sed spiritalis et particeps aeternitas tuae, quia sine labe in aeternum"; CCL 27.225.
90. conf. 11.29.39: "donec in te confluam purgatus et liquidus igne amoris tui"; CCL 27.215.
Creation as the Unifying Prologue 31 mutable but only in the unchangeable and everlasting. The cor inquietum will settle for no effect of God and, as such, here the two senses of "quare fecerit?" conflate into God himself, signifying a key hermeneutic in understanding how creation acts as a prologue to Augustine's theology of divine union. For in the second sense of this question (that is, toward what end have creatures been brought about?), we now see how God again appears as the answer. Creatures exist both from and for God; they do so never in isolation, but rather as a collective unison of praise and thanksgiving. This is why God created the world: to offer communion with his divine life, to invite this ecclesial convocation of created persons to be united in constant praise and assimilation.
Conclusion
We began this chapter with Patric Ronson's accusation that Augustine's cosmos is not inherently in union with its creator. Using Augustine's suggestion at De Ciuitate Dei 11.21 that the three most important questions one could ask of a thing are, "Who made it?" "By what means was it made?" and "For what purpose was it made?" we came to see that creation is essentially a conuersio ad Deum, an intrinsic reception of God's incessant gift of being. In such a world, creator and creation are never rivals. Rather, creation is an invited participant in the God who freely desires to share his divine felicity in ways befitting various created natures.
In answering who created the world, we encountered a God who is defined by personal relationship. The Father's paternity and the Son's filiation are eternal acts of mutual gift. The complete handing over of the Father is realized by the Son's response and the Son's active gazing upon the Father, permitting the Father's paternity; the Holy Spirit accomplishes this exchange as an eternal act of love uniting Father and Son. As such, creation appears as the first externalization of