78. Michael Hanby, Augustine and Modernity (London: Routledge, 2004), 85.
Creation as the Unifying Prologue 27 gift of being. Prior to this gratuity they are simply nothing at all. None of the usual binaries are adequate to the representation of the act of creation. Indeed creation, properly speaking, cannot be represented at all.78
In other words, creation essentially turns toward God so as to receive God's goodness; the notion of "creation" without an ever-active creator is unthinkable for Augustine. Creation is nothing if not a faint imitation of the Son's eternal and unchanging adherence to the Father [sempiterne atque incommutabiliter inhaerentem patri].
Examining the components which constitute the central question of creation—per quid fecerit?—we have thus far looked at the Word's unity with the Father, the formabilitas God first brings about, and the needed conversion and formation of contingent being as it imitates the Son's stance before the Father. Let us now turn to the third and final question Augustine poses about creation: quare fecerit?
Quare Fecerit? God's Goodness and
Creation's Communal Praise
This final section begins by distinguishing the two senses of "quare fecerit?": "Why did God choose to create?" or "Toward what goal did God create?" Only by distinguishing the dual meaning of "quare?" can we answer this question for Augustine, as he refuses to entertain answering "quare?" in the first sense, "Why did God choose to create?" Augustine knows that in trying to answer the initial sense of "quare?" one must always keep in mind that God never acts from compulsion or out of neediness. As self-subsisting joy, God's gaudium is in no way increased by what he makes.79 Yet in the second sense of "quare fecerit?," "Toward what goal did God create?" the
78. Michael Hanby, Augustine and Modernity (London: Routledge, 2004), 85. 79. Cf. conf. 13.4.5.