The Philokalia

by Nicodemus of the Holy Mountain

4. God is not a being either in the general or in any specific sense of the word, and so He cannot be an 'origin. Nor is He a potentiality either in the general or in any specific sense, and so He is not an intermediary state. Nor is He an actualization in the general or in any specific sense, and so He cannot be the consummation of that activity which proceeds from a being in which it is perceived to pre-exist as a potentiality . On the contrary. He is the author of being and simultaneously an entity transcending being; He is the author of potentiality and simultaneously the ground transcending potentiality; and He is the active and inexhaustible state of all actualization. In short. He is the author of all being, potentiality and actualization, and of every origin, intermediary state and consummation.