Page:Complete Works of Count Tolstoy - 13.djvu/214

 Who, we repeat, will be bold enough to utter such blasphemy?”

Then follows a moral exposition of the dogma of the Trinity, which was quoted before. One cannot help but come to the conclusion that the simplest, clearest application of all the preceding controversies is that one must not speak any foolishness; above all, one must not teach what nobody can understand, and, more important still, one must not impair the chief foundations of faith, love, and charity to your neighbour.

Then follows “Division II. Of God in his general relation to the world and to man. Chapter I. Of God as the Creator.” God has created the world.

Here is the way the church teaches about it:

“Unquestionably God is the creator of all visible and invisible creations. First he produced through thought all the celestial powers, as exalted psalmists of his glory, and created all that mental world which, through the grace given to it, knows God and is always and in everything devoted to his will. After that he created out of nothing this visible and material world. At last God created man, who is composed of the immaterial rational soul and the material body, so that from this one man, thus composed, it might be seen that he is the creator of both the worlds, the immaterial and the material.” (P. 351.)

After that, as always, follows a controversy:

“Some assumed that the world was eternal; others admitted its emanation from God; others again taught that the world was created by itself, by accident, from the eternal chaos or from atoms; others taught that God has formed it from coeternal matter; but no one could rise to the concept of the production of the world out of nothing by the almighty power of God.” (p. 352.)

All these opinions are refuted in Art. 55:

“God created the world out of nothing.” 56. “God