The Universe as a Whole Is Not God

How then can these things be gods, when they need one another’s help? Or how is it right to ask anything of them, when they themselves ask help from one another? For it is an accepted truth about God that he needs nothing, but is sufficient to himself and complete in himself, that in him all things have their being, and that he serves the needs of all rather than they his. How then is it right to proclaim as gods the sun and moon and the other parts of creation, which are nothing of the kind, but even need one another’s help? But perhaps our opponents themselves will admit that, when divided and taken by themselves, these things are dependent, since the proof is before their eyes. But they will put them all together as making up one single body, and say that the whole is God. For once the whole is put together, it will no longer need help from outside, but will be sufficient for itself and independent in every respect. So at least the would-be philosophers will tell us, only to be refuted here once more.

This argument, no less than those already dealt with, will show their impiety, together with great ignorance. For if the combining of the parts makes up the whole, and the whole is combined out of the parts, then the whole consists of the parts, and each of them is a portion of the whole. But this is very far from the true idea of God. For God is a whole and not a number of parts. He does not consist of different elements; he is himself the Maker of the order of the universe. See what impiety they utter against the deity when they say this! For if he consists of parts, it will certainly follow that he is unlike himself, and made up of unlike parts. If he is sun, he is not moon; if he is moon, he is not earth; and if he is earth, he cannot be sea. And so, taking the parts one by one, one may find out the absurdity of this theory of theirs.

But the following point, drawn from observing our human body, is enough to refute them. The eye is not the sense of hearing, nor is hearing a hand; the belly is not the chest, nor is the neck a foot. Each of these has its own function, and a single body is made up of these distinct parts. Its parts are joined together for use, but they are bound to be divided in the course of time, when nature, which brought them together, divides them at the will of God, who so ordered it. In the same way (but may he who is above forgive the argument!), if they combine the parts of creation into one body and proclaim it God, it follows, first, that he is unlike himself, as was shown above; and second, that he is bound to be divided again, according to the natural tendency of the parts to come apart.