The Contest of Wisdom with Folly

Isa. 42:5

...creating the earth, and the things that spring from it, giving breath to the people who are upon it, and spirit to them who walk upon it. From these it is clear that God does all things from the Prior to the posterior, in Himself and through Himself. This the Apostle also expressly confirms in these words: From Him, in Him, and through Him are all things. And elsewhere: God (he says) gives life to all things in the Word. And elsewhere: God the Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in all of us. And elsewhere: Of God are all things, but God is one. But he seems to assert this even more clearly in other speech, saying: God works all things in all, and in another place, stripping all power of acting through Himself from both Angels and stars, and attributing every act of the world to God alone and uniquely, he breaks forth into this speech: For there are gods who are called in heaven and on earth, but to us there is one God the Father, of whom are all things and we in Him, and one Lord Jesus Christ, through whom are all things, and we through Him.

Rom. 11:32

1 Tim. 6
Eph. 4:6
2 Cor. 3
1 Cor. 11

1 Cor. 8

Acts 17:9

Whence also elsewhere: In God we live, and move, and are. This is with every other acting cause put aside and excluded, as one without which nothing is done in this world. Wherefore in another place of the same it is said that God, needing nothing, gives to all life and inspiration and all things. By these we are clearly taught that it is not created nature itself which truly does these things, but God Himself, donning the image or effigy of the creature and existing centrally in creatures, and using them as if they were organs, so that through them He may execute His will, as much in the heavens as on the earth.

Acts 17

Bar. 6

But the Prophet Baruch also seems to testify to this in this sense: The sun, the moon, the stars, the lightning, the spirit, the clouds, the fire, etc., obey God diligently in all things. For it cannot happen otherwise, but that all creatures should be rendered obedient to the creator, insofar as they received life and form from the Word or the Spirit of Wisdom at their creation, as the divine John testifies. Since this life is joined to the divinity and consequently preserved by it, and also since that divinity is most closely joined to life and form by an indivisible bond, it follows that the creature is rendered obedient to the will of the creator, as it were in a moment.

Job 38:35

Hence we find it written concerning the lightning, His creature: Will you send the lightnings, and they shall go, and returning say to you, Here we are. And elsewhere concerning fire thus: God sent the fire lest it should burn; now God makes the fire burn between the waters, so that He might corrupt the offspring of the unjust earth. Wherefore that consequence which you (Marinus) make was most wretched, when your text is such.

Marinus' text at the foot of the column.

Col. 712

Although we have established the light of the sun on the first day, it is by no means to be conceded that by its power water was separated from the earth, and air from water; for it is confirmed by experience that the sun can scarcely dry up any sewer in the space of eight days in mid-summer; how therefore did it dry up the whole earth, which we see laid bare, in one or two days?

Robert’s examination.

Here (Readers) you can see how sordid and fetid is his comparison, where there is talk of things so holy and divine. It is as if he could not have placed his similitude in mud, mire, or a moist swamp, rather than descending into sewers and dunghills. But this is not a wonder, since the delight of swine is in sewers and dung; but to the matter. If it is in the will of God that the Sun should rest fixedly in its place, as in the times of Joshua; if He commands it to move backwards, as in the days of King Hezekiah; if He intensifies or diminishes the heat of fire at His pleasure, as is had in the aforementioned place, and as happened to those three Israelite children in the fiery furnace of Nebuchadnezzar; if a vehement east wind, at the command of Jehovah, can dry up the sea itself in one night: how foolish and sordid was that question of Marinus, whether GOD would, for the sake of one sewer, intensify the act of the sun to such a degree that He would destroy the fruits of the earth by drying them out, or change the benign weather of the year in a prodigious manner?