The Word Keeps Creation in Being

But though he is the Word, he is not, as we said, like human words, made of syllables. He is the unchanging Image of his own Father. Human beings, made up of parts and made out of nothing, have speech that is compound and divisible. But God truly exists and is not compound, and so his Word also truly exists and is not compound. He is God, the one and only Son, who comes forth in his goodness from the Father as from a good fountain, and orders all things and holds them together. [a]

The reason why the Word, the Word of God, has united himself with created things is truly wonderful, and it teaches us that the present order of things is exactly as it should be. For the nature of created things, since it was brought into being out of nothing, is fleeting, weak and mortal, if it is left to itself. But the God of all is good and supremely noble by nature, and therefore he is kind. For one who is good can begrudge nothing, and so he does not begrudge even existence, but wants all things to exist, so that they may receive his loving-kindness. He saw, then, that all created nature, as far as its own laws went, was fleeting and subject to dissolution. So that it would not come to this, and the universe would not break up again into nothing, he made all things by his own eternal Word and gave creation real existence. Nor did he leave it to be tossed about in a storm by the course of its own nature, in danger of once more dropping out of existence. Instead, because he is good, he guides and settles the whole creation by his own Word, who is himself also God, so that by the Word’s governing, providence and ordering, creation may have light and be able to remain secure always. For creation shares in the Word, who has true existence from the Father, and it is helped by him to exist. Otherwise there would come upon it what would have come if the Word did not sustain it, namely dissolution. “For he is the Image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation; for through him and in him all things hold together, things visible and things invisible, and he is the Head of the church,” as the ministers of the truth teach in their holy writings.