Uncreate[d],
without beginning, immortal, infinite, eternal, immaterial, good,
creative, just, enlightening, immutable, passionless, uncircumscribed,
immeasurable, unlimited, undefined, unseen, unthinkable, wanting in
nothing, being His own rule and authority, all-ruling, life-giving,
omnipotent, of infinite power, containing and maintaining the universe
and making provision for all: all these and such like attributes the
Deity possesses by nature, not having received them from elsewhere, but
Himself imparting all good to His own creations according to the
capacity of each.
The subsistences dwell and are
established firmly in one another. For they are inseparable and cannot
part from one another, but keep to their separate courses within one
another, without coalescing or mingling, but cleaving to each other. For
the Son is in the Father and the Spirit: and the Spirit in the Father
and the Son: and the Father in the Son and the Spirit, but there is no
coalescence or commingling or confusion. And there is one and the same
motion: for there is one impulse and one motion of the three
subsistences, which is not to be observed in any created nature.
Further the divine effulgence and energy,
being one and simple and indivisible, assuming many varied forms in its
goodness among what is divisible and allotting to each the component
parts of its own nature, still remains simple and is multiplied without
division among the divided, and gathers and converts the divided into
its own simplicity. For all things long after it and have their
existence in it. It gives also to all things being according to their
several natures, and it is itself the being of existing things, the life
of living things, the reason of rational beings, the thought of thinking
beings. But it is itself above mind and reason and life and essence.
Further the divine nature has the
property of penetrating all things without mixing with them and of being
itself impenetrable by anything else. Moreover, there is the property of
knowing all things with a simple knowledge and of seeing all things,
simply with His divine, all-surveying, immaterial eye, both the things
of the present, and the things of the past, and the things of the
future, before they come into being. It is also sinless, and can cast
sin out, and bring salvation: and all that it wills, it can accomplish,
but does not will all it could accomplish. For it could destroy the
universe but it does not will so to do.
St. John of Damascus - An Exact Exposition of the Orthodox
Faith, Book One - from ccel.org