These are the stories they tell. But the divinely inspired teaching and the Christian faith condemn their empty talk as godlessness. For the universe did not come into being spontaneously, since it is not without providence, nor from pre-existing matter, since God is not weak. Rather, God brought all things from non-existence into being through the Word, though they had never existed in any way before. Thus He says through Moses, “In the beginning God made heaven and earth,” and through the most helpful book of the Shepherd, “First of all, believe that there is one God, who created and ordered all things and brought them from non-existence into being.”
Paul also indicates the same thing when he says, “By faith we understand that the worlds were formed by the word of God, so that what is seen did not come into being from visible things.”
For God is good—or rather, He is the source of goodness—and one who is good does not withhold good from others. Therefore, He withheld existence from no one, but made all things from non-existence through His own Word, our Lord Jesus Christ. Among earthly creatures, He showed special mercy to the human race. Seeing that human beings could not continue forever, given the condition of their origin, He gave them something more. He did not create them merely as He created all the irrational animals on earth, but made them according to His own image and gave them a share in the power of His own Word. Thus, having, as it were, shadows of the Word and becoming rational, they might be able to remain in blessedness, living in paradise the true and genuine life of the saints.
God also knew that the human will could turn either way, so He safeguarded in advance the grace He had given them by providing a law and a place. He brought them into His own paradise and gave them a law. If they guarded the grace and remained good, then they would have life in paradise without sorrow, pain, or care, together with the promise of incorruption in heaven. But if they transgressed, turned away, and became evil, then they would know that they were undergoing the natural corruption of death and would live no longer in paradise, but, dying outside it, continue in death and corruption.
Holy Scripture also foretells this, speaking in the person of God: “From every tree in paradise you shall surely eat, but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat; on the day that you eat from it, you shall surely die.” What else can “you shall surely die” mean except this: that they would not merely die, but would also remain in the corruption of death?