{"collection":"chr","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/chr/ecf/105/1050368.htm","path":"chr/ecf/105/1050368.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/chr/ecf/105/1050368.htm","text":"Chapter XIV.\u2014(32.) The Fourth Passage. In What Sense God Only is Good. With God to Be Good and to Be Himself are the Same Thing.\n\u201cThey likewise,\u201d says he, \u201cquote what the Saviour says: \u2018Why callest thou me good? There is none good save one, that is, God?\u2019\u201d 1504 This statement, however, he makes no attempt whatever to explain; all he does is to oppose to it sundry other passages which seem to contradict it, which he adduces to show that man, too, is good. Here are his remarks: \u201cWe must answer this text with another, in which the same Lord says, \u2018A good man out of the good treasure of his heart bringeth forth good things.\u2019 1505 And again: \u2018He maketh His sun to rise on the good and on the evil.\u2019 1506 Then in another passage it is written, \u2018For the good things are created from the beginning;\u2019 1507 and yet again, \u2018They that are good shall dwell in the land.\u2019\u201d 1508 Now to all this we must say in answer, that the passages in question must be understood in the same sense as the former one, \u201cThere is none good, save one, that is, God.\u201d Either because all created things, although God made them very p. 171 good, are yet, when compared with their Creator, not good, being in fact incapable of any comparison with Him. For in a transcendent, and yet very proper sense, He said of Himself, \u201cI Am that I Am.\u201d 1509 The statement therefore before us, \u201cNone is good save one, that is, God,\u201d is used in some such way as that which is said of John, \u201cHe was not that light;\u201d 1510 although the Lord calls him \u201ca lamp,\u201d 1511 just as He says to His disciples: \u201cYe are the light of the world: . . .neither do men light a lamp and put it under a bushel.\u201d 1512 Still, in comparison with that light which is \u201cthe true light which lighteth every man that cometh into the world,\u201d 1513 he was not light. Or else, because the very sons of God even, when compared with themselves as they shall hereafter become in their eternal perfection, are good in such a way that they still remain also evil. Although I should not have dared to say this of them (for who would be so bold as to call them evil who have God for their Father?) unless the Lord had Himself said: \u201cIf ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask Him?\u201d 1514 Of course, by applying to them the words, \u201cyour Father,\u201d He proved that they were already sons of God; and yet at the same time He did not hesitate to say that they were \u201cevil.\u201d Your author, however, does not explain to us how they are good, whilst yet \u201cthere is none good save one, that is, God.\u201d Accordingly the man who asked \u201cwhat good thing he was to do,\u201d 1515 was admonished to seek Him 1516 by whose grace he might be good; to whom also to be good is nothing else than to be Himself, because He is unchangeably good, and cannot be evil at all.\nJohn v. 35: [\u201clucernam,\u201d not \u201clux:\u201d as also in the Dies Ir\u00e6 it is said of John, \u201cnon lux iste, sed lucernam,\u201d in allusion to these passages.\u2014W.]\n171:1512\nMatt. 5:14, 15.\n171:1513 171:1514 171:1515 171:1516\nLuke 10:27, 28.","title":"Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Vol. V: A Treatise Concer...","type":"page"}