For everything else that is born comes into being through the impulse of those who beget it, but spiritual birth depends on the power of the one being born. Since the danger here is that one may miss what is truly advantageous, while the choice lies within everyone's power, I say that anyone setting out toward his own birth should first determine by reason what kind of father will be for his good and from whom it is better for his nature to be constituted. For, as we have said, this kind of birth has the power to choose its parents.
Since, then, existing things are divided in two, into the created and the uncreated, and the uncreated nature possesses in itself what is unchangeable and unalterable, while creation is subject to change and alteration, which would a person who rationally chooses what is for his good prefer to become a child of: the nature seen in change, or the nature that is steadfast and stable and always remains the same in goodness? Since the Gospel has handed down the three Persons and names through whom birth comes to believers, and the one who is born in the Trinity is equally born from the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit—for the Gospel says of the Spirit, "What is born of the Spirit is spirit"; Paul begets in Christ; and "the Father is Father of all"—here, I ask, let the listener's mind be sober, lest he make himself the offspring of an unstable nature when he has the power to make the unchangeable and unalterable nature the source of his own life.
For what takes place has its efficacy according to the disposition of the heart of the one who approaches this dispensation. Thus the one who confesses the Holy Trinity to be uncreated enters into the unchangeable and unalterable life, while the one who, through a mistaken conception, sees created nature in the Trinity and is then baptized in it is born again into a mutable and changing life. For what is born is necessarily of the same nature as those who beget it.
What, then, would be more advantageous: to enter into the unchangeable life, or to be tossed again on the waves of a life that is unstable and changing? Since it is clear to everyone who has even the least share of understanding that what is stable is far more valuable than what is unstable, the perfect than the deficient, what has no need than what is in need, and what has no further point to advance to but remains forever in the perfection of the good than what rises through progress, anyone with understanding must necessarily choose one of two things. Either he must believe that the Holy Trinity is of the uncreated nature and thus, through spiritual birth, make the Holy Trinity the source of his own life; or, if he thinks that the Son or the Holy Spirit is outside the nature of the first and true and good God—that is, the Father—he should not include faith in them at the time of his birth, lest he unwittingly attach himself to an imperfect nature that itself needs another to make it good and, in a way, bring himself back again to what is of the same kind as himself by withdrawing his faith from the transcendent nature.
For whoever has yoked himself to any created thing has, without realizing it, placed his hope of salvation in that created thing and not in the divine nature.
For all creation is naturally related to itself because all of it alike has come from non-being into being. And just as, in the structure of a body, all the members are naturally connected with one another even though some happen to be lower and others higher, so created nature is united with itself by the very fact of being created. The differences among us in superiority and deficiency do not sever created nature from its natural kinship with itself. For where prior nonexistence is conceived equally, even if there are differences in other respects, we find no variation of nature in this respect.
If, then, a human being is created and he also thinks that the Spirit and the Only-begotten God are created, his hope of a change for the better would be vain, since he is only returning to himself. What happens is like the reasoning of Nicodemus, who learned from the Lord that one must be born from above but, because he was not yet able to grasp the meaning of the mystery, was dragged down in his thoughts to his mother's womb.
Therefore, if he does not bring himself to the uncreated nature but to creation that is kindred to him and, like him, a servant, his birth is from below, not from above. But the Gospel says that the birth of those who are saved is from above.