The One Christ: St. Augustine's Theology of Deification
Creation as the Unifying Prologue 29 divine goodness cannot be jealous, and it accordingly reveals a positive propensity to communicate itself. Most simply put, God creates because he wishes to.83 Creation is God's purposeful sharing of his goodness with his creatures.
At least once Augustine combines the divine attributes we have hitherto mentioned: God's power, God's lack of jealousy, God's goodness, as well as God's enjoyment of that which he has brought about.84 God brings other beings into existence and is in no way diminished by his creation: he is neither endangered by hostile forces nor threatened by sharing his life with other beings. Creation exists for God; God does not exist for it. As such, if there is no efficient cause to God's creating, we must answer "quare fecerit?" only in terms of the purpose for which the created world has been brought into being. In this fashion, Augustine provides us with a way to understand the ultimate purpose of God's good creation.
Augustinian creation is clearly framed between two ontological extremes: simple formability and pure perfection. Both states are motionless and invisible. Moreover, as we saw when we examined formabilitas above, the pure potentiality of God's first creative act cannot be a goal or a terminus, but rather the origin of all other goals and termini. Its converse, the higher "limit," is the caelum caeli, that created blessedness where eternity and immutability are enjoyed sine ullo defectu contemplationis.85 It is this perfect creature which is the end proleptically contained in Genesis. In this way the church emerges as the answer to the question, "For what end does creation exist?" The denouement of God's good creation is the communal praise offered by his holy creatures.
Early in the Christian tradition, the church is represented
83. en. Ps. 134.10: "Non omnia quae fecit, coactus est facere, sed omnia quaecumque uoluit, fecit"; CCL 40.1945.
84. Gn. litt. 4.16: "sed bona facere si non, nulla est inuidentia. quia ergo est omnipotens et bonus, omnia ualde bona fecit"; CSEL 28.113.
85. conf. 12.12.15; CCL 27.223.