The One Christ: St. Augustine's Theology of Deification
Creation as the Unifying Prologue 3 to ask "quare fecerit?" not by asking what motivated God to create but by asking what purpose did God implant within creation when he willed it. We thus discover Augustine's two-fold answer for why creation was brought about: for the sake of creation's union as well as for praise of the supreme Trinity.
Readers may recognize how the divisions of this chapter follow Augustine's suggestion at De Ciuitate Dei 11.21, that there are always three factors one should know about a created thing: who made it [quis fecerit?], how he made it [per quid fecerit?], and why he made it [quare fecerit?]. For within the Augustinian narrative, it is impossible to talk of a creature without also talking about its creator (quis) as well as the efficient (per quid) and final (quare) causes for that existent. To answer these questions this chapter will analyze mainly selections from Augustine's various commentaries on Genesis, the latter books of the Confessions, and selections from De Genesi ad litteram.
Quis Fecerit? The Triune God's
Act of Creation
Since creation is God's original revelation of self ad extra, we approach it as the fundamental prologue to divine union. For Augustine, creation and deification are related in two ways. First, they are both utterly free, traceable only to God's graciousness. Second, in their own measure, both creation and salvation reflect the interpersonal life of the Trinity. Both creation and salvation show us how God is utter goodness, incapable of any jealousy, instead revealing himself as one who wills to share his life. As Augustine would have learned from Plato's Timaeus, God generated the visible world because his goodness disallows any jealousy (φθόνος): God is not only good and free, but actually desires all things to be like him insofar as their natures permit.2 God has no need of creation
2. Cf. Timaeus 29D–30A.