Not for Lions or Eagles

To everything he has already said Celsus adds this: “All things, then, were not made for man, any more than they were made for the lion or the eagle or the dolphin. They were made so that this world, as God’s work, might come out whole and complete out of all its parts. That is why everything has been measured out with a view not to one another — except incidentally — but to the whole. God cares for the whole, and providence never abandons it; it does not grow worse; God does not turn it back to himself after a stretch of time; he is not angry on account of human beings any more than on account of apes or mice; and he does not threaten them either, since each of them has received its own portion in its own place.” [a]

Come then, let us meet these statements, at least briefly. I think I have shown in what has already been said how all things were made for man and for every rational being; for it was chiefly for the sake of the rational living creature that everything was made. Celsus may go on saying that in that case they were made no more for man than for the lion or for the other creatures he names. Our answer is this. The Creator did not make these things for the lion or the eagle or the dolphin. He made them all for the sake of the rational creature, and “so that this world, as God’s work, might come out whole and complete out of all its parts.” That sentence we must agree to, since it is well said.

But God’s care is not for the whole only, as Celsus supposes. Beyond the whole, it is for every rational being in particular. And providence will never abandon the whole. If some part of the whole does grow worse, through the sin of the rational being, God manages even that: he arranges the cleansing of it, and in time turns the whole back to himself. He is not angry on account of apes or mice, no. But on human beings, who have gone against the natural starting points given them, he brings judgment and punishment; and he threatens them through the prophets, and through the Savior, who came to stay among the whole human race. The point of the threat is that those who listen may be turned back by it, while those who pay no attention to the words that call them back may pay the penalty they deserve — the penalty it befits God to lay on those who need a treatment of that kind, and one so painful, and need to be set straight. And he lays it in keeping with his own will, which works for the good of everything.

But the fourth book has now reached a fair length, and we will bring the discussion to a stop here. May God grant, through his Son — who is God the Word, and Wisdom, and Truth, and Righteousness, and everything else the sacred writings call him when they speak of him as God — that we may make a good beginning of the fifth book as well, for the benefit of those who will read it, and carry that one well through to the end, with his Word coming to stay in our soul.