Many people have understood the making of the world and the creation of all things in different ways, and each has defined the matter as he wished. Some, such as the Epicureans, say that everything came into being by itself and by chance. They claim that there is no providence governing the universe, contradicting what is evident and plainly seen.
For if, as they say, everything came into being by itself and without providence, everything should simply have come into being alike rather than in different forms. In the universe everything would be sun or moon, and in the human body everything would be hand, eye, or foot. But that is not what we see. We see the sun, the moon, and the earth, and in human bodies a foot, a hand, and a head. This arrangement shows that things did not come into being by themselves, but that a cause preceded them; from this we can recognize God as the one who ordered and made all things.
Others, including Plato, who is highly regarded among the Greeks, say that God made the universe from pre-existing and uncreated matter. They argue that God could not have made anything unless matter already existed, just as wood must already be available for a carpenter to do his work.
But in saying this they do not realize that they are attributing weakness to God. For if He is not Himself the cause of matter, but makes existing things only from matter already present, He is shown to be weak, since He cannot make anything without matter—just as it is a limitation of the carpenter that he cannot make what is needed without wood. On their assumption, if matter had not existed, God would have made nothing. How, then, could He still be called Maker and Craftsman if His ability to make depended on something else, namely matter? According to them, God would be only a craftsman and not the Creator who brings things into being, since He would merely work upon existing matter without being its cause. Indeed, He could not be called Creator at all if He did not create the matter from which created things were made.
The heretics invent for themselves another maker of all things besides the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, showing great blindness even in what they say.
For the Lord says to the Jews: "Have you not read that from the beginning the one who created them made them male and female, and said, ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’?" Then, indicating the Creator, He says, "Therefore, what God has joined together, let no one separate." How, then, can they say that creation is foreign to the Father? And since John includes everything when he says, "All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him not one thing came into being," how could the Maker be anyone other than the Father of Christ?