We live in a strange world that is so blind as not to see what is set plainly before it. Our very existence is given by God. Yet the worldly-minded are so depraved as to argue that what is seen happened by accident, although there is no evidence to that effect. The ancients were not so blinded. They at least recognized that the organizing principle of the universe was the Logos, the divine Word, so that when John says, "In the beginning was the Word.... All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made." (Jn 1:1, 3), there was an immediate recognition of the truth of this statement. The stumbling block for the ancients was not the very existence of the God who creates, as it is for us post-moderns. Today, we have to build a case for God's very existence because of the progressive blindness of humanity as it careens toward the Judgment Day.  We are fallen and falling. Perhaps, we are witnessing the final devolution of humanity as it slips farther down the slope of the fall.

The ancients struggled with salvation rather than creation. While they could see that the creation was God's work, they couldn't see that such an all-powerful Creator would also willingly abase Himself in the incarnation, taking on flesh of a virgin, flesh like ours, that we might be redeemed through His suffering and death on the cross. This couldn't be arrived at by human wisdom alone, as the facts of creation could be according to St. Paul in Romans. Yet the hopeless situation in which humanity found itself apart from the saving God, Christ Jesus, clarified the need for the Savior. How foolish and intransigent of those who knew of a Creator, but saw no need for a Savior.

"There have been some philosophers of this world who have sought for the Creator by means of the creature. For He can be found by means of the creature, as the apostle plainly says, 'For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.' (Rm 1:20)....They saw where they must go; but ungrateful to Him who afforded them what they saw, they wished to ascribe to themselves what they saw; and having become proud, they lost what they saw, and were turned from it to idols and images, and to the worship of demons, to adore the creature and to despise the Creator (Rm 1:19-25). But these having been blinded did those things, and became proud, that they might be blinded. When they were proud they said that they were wise. Those, therefore, concerning whom he said, 'Who, although they knew God' (Rm 1:21) saw what John says, that by the Word of God all things were made (Jn 1:1-3). These things are also found in the books of the philosophers and that God has an Only-begotten Son, by whom are all things. They were able to see that which is, but they saw it from afar.

However, they were unwilling to accept the lowliness of Christ, in which ship they might have safely arrived at that which they were able to see from afar. The cross of Christ appeared vile to them. The sea has to be crossed, and do you despise the wood? Oh, proud wisdom! You laugh to scorn the crucified Christ. It is He whom you see from afar: 'In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God' (Jn 1:1).