CONTRA FATUM

”[...]just as the person who looks upon the perceptible cosmos and has grasped the Wisdom that is displayed in the beauty of these beings infers, on the basis of what the eye sees, the invisible Beauty and the wellspring of Wisdom, whose outflow contrived the natural order of what is, so too the person who attends to this new cosmos that appears in the creation of the church sees in it the One who is and is becoming ”all in all” (cf. 1 Cor 15:28) as, by way of the things our nature can take in and comprehend, he directs our knowledge toward that which cannot be contained.” (In Cant. 386, Norris p. 407) ”ὥσπερ τοίνυν ὁ πρὸς τὸν αἰσθητὸν ἀπιδὼν κόσμον καὶ τὴν ἐμφαινομένην τῷ κάλλει τῶν ὄντων σοφίαν κατανοήσας ἀναλογίζεται διὰ τῶν ὁρωμένων τό τε ἀόρατον κάλλος καὶ τὴν πηγὴν τῆς σοφίας, ἧς ἡ ἀπόρροια τὴν τῶν ὄντων συνεστήσατο φύσιν, οὕτω καὶ ὁ πρὸς τὸν καινὸν τοῦτον κόσμον τῆς κατὰ τὴν ἐκκλησίαν κτίσεως βλέπων ὁρᾷ ἐν αὐτῷ τὸν πάντα ἐν πᾶσιν ὄντα τε καὶ γινόμενον διὰ τῶν χωρητῶν τε καὶ κα...

That God, the creative and sustaining cause of all, exists, sight and instinctive law inform us - sight, which lights upon things seen as nobly fixed in their course, borne along in, so to speak, motionless movement; instinctive law, which infers their author through the things seen in their orderliness. How could this universe have had a foundation or constitution, unless God gave all things being and sustains them?

“The Divine Nature, whatever It may be in Itself, surpasses (ὑπέρκειται) every mental concept (ἐπινοίας). For It is altogether inaccessible (ἀπρόσιτος) to reasoning (ἐπινοίαις) and conjecture (στοχαστικαῖς), nor has there been found any human faculty (δύναμις) capable of perceiving the incomprehensible; for we cannot devise a means of understanding inconceivable things. Therefore the great Apostle calls His ways unsearchable, meaning by this that the way that leads to (σημαίνων) knowledge (τὴν γνῶσιν) of the Divine Essence is inaccessible to thought (λογισμοῖς). That is to say, none of those who have passed through life before us has made known to the intelligence so much as a trace (σημαινο) by which might be known what is above knowledge. Since such is He whose nature is above every nature, the Invisible and Incomprehensible is seen and apprehended in another manner. Many are the modes (τρόποι) of such perception. For it is possible to see Him who has made all things in wisdom by way...