DAILY CONTEMPLATION

January 2, 2026 ~ Kiahk 24, 1742

[The universe] was not made from pre-existent matter, but out of nothing
and absolute and utter non-existence, God brought it into being through His Word…
For God is good… and it is impossible for one who is good to be mean or grudging about anything.
Grudging existence to none therefore, He made all things out of nothing through His own Word, our Lord Jesus Christ;
and of all these His earthly creatures He reserved special mercy for the race of men.
Upon men who were essentially impermanent, He bestowed a grace which other creatures lacked –
namely, the impress of His own Image, a share in the reasonable being of the very Word Himself,
so that, reflecting Him and themselves becoming reasonable
and expressing the Mind of God even as He does, though in limited degree,
they might continue forever in the blessed and only true life of the saints in paradise.
But since the will of man could turn either way,
God secured this grace that He had given by making it conditional from the first upon two things –
namely, a law and a place. He set them in His own paradise, and laid upon them a single prohibition.
St Athanasius, On the Incarnation