{"collection":"chr","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/chr/ecf/105/1050310.htm","path":"chr/ecf/105/1050310.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/chr/ecf/105/1050310.htm","text":"Chapter 63 [LIV.]\u2014Does God Create Contraries?\nHe next endeavours, by much quotation from the apostle, about which there is no controversy, to show \u201cthat the flesh is often mentioned by him in such a manner as proves him to mean not the substance, but the works of the flesh.\u201d What is this to the point? The defects of the flesh are contrary to the will of man; his nature is not accused; but a Physician is wanted for its defects. What signifies his question, \u201cWho made man\u2019s spirit?\u201d and his own answer thereto, \u201cGod, without a doubt?\u201d Again he asks, \u201cWho created the flesh?\u201d and again answers, \u201cThe same God, I suppose.\u201d And yet a third question, \u201cIs the God good who created both?\u201d and the third answer, \u201cNobody doubts it.\u201d Once more a question, \u201cAre not both good, since the good Creator made them?\u201d and its answer, \u201cIt must be confessed that they are.\u201d And then follows his conclusion: \u201cIf, therefore, both the spirit is good, and the flesh is good, as made by the good Creator, how can it be that the two good things should be contrary to one another?\u201d I need not say that the whole of this reasoning would be upset if one were to ask him, \u201cWho made heat and cold?\u201d and he were to say in answer, \u201cGod, without a doubt.\u201d I do not ask the string of questions. Let him determine himself whether these conditions of climate may either be said to be not good, or else whether they do not seem to be contrary to each other. Here he will probably object, \u201cThese are not substances, but the qualities of substances.\u201d Very true, it is so. But still they are natural qualities, and undoubtedly belong to God\u2019s creation; and substances, indeed, are not said to be contrary to each other in themselves, but in their qualities, as water and fire. What if it be so too with flesh and spirit? We do not affirm it to be so; but, in order to show that his argument terminates in a conclusion which does not necessarily follow, we have said so much as this. For it is quite possible for contraries not to be reciprocally opposed to each other, but rather by mutual action to temper health and render it good; just as, in our body, dryness and moisture, cold and heat,\u2014in the tempering of which altogether consists our bodily health. The fact, however, that \u201cthe flesh is contrary to the Spirit, so that we cannot do the things that we would,\u201d 1281 is a defect, not nature. The Physician\u2019s grace must be sought, and their controversy must end.","title":"Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Vol. V: A Treatise on Nat...","type":"page"}