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Creation, fall and providence

Creation belongs to a sacred account of fall, restoration and divine ordering. It is distinguished from the later maintenance of things already created.

From the book

Centrum Naturae Concentratum

Attributed to Ali Puli · Diotimos Editions · 2026

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Orientation

At a Glance

  • The wordCreation belongs to a sacred account of fall, restoration and divine ordering. It is distinguished from the later maintenance of things already created.
  • In the bookThe devil’s fallen realm precedes the human creation and fall. The regenerated salt is subsequently said to mirror this sacred history, while Helbig’s preface expressly dissents from the proposed cause of creation.
  • In this edition“As it were a new creation” preserves a comparison in the account of human formation. Difficult printed expressions remain visible rather than being rewritten as modern physics.
  • A place to readPreface by Helbig to the Reader · Passage 3 and The Concentrated Centre of Nature · Passage 17–The Concentrated Centre of Nature · Passage 18: read the prefatory dissent beside the account it declines to endorse.

Meaning

Creation is not presented as a neutral physical origin story. The main narrator recounts a sacred history of a luminous realm’s fall, God’s intervention and the formation of the present world. Helbig’s preface expressly declines to approve this account, while retaining it because it is structurally integral to the book.

The narrative contains more than one beginning and more than one fall. The Concentrated Centre of Nature · Passage 17 concerns a luminous domain and its former ruling centre; The Concentrated Centre of Nature · Passage 33 gives humanity a special bodily formation; The Concentrated Centre of Nature · Passage 38 concerns the effects of human corruption. These moments should not be compressed into a single undifferentiated catastrophe. Their repeated structure—centre, dependent domain, disorder and consequence—allows the later event to recall the earlier while remaining a distinct stage of the account.

Use in the book

The first fall precedes the creation of humanity. The devil, previously centre and lord of a luminous domain, seeks through excessive movement to make his light equal to God’s. Matter sharpens, burns and darkens, becoming progressively coarser. Divine light then enters its pure centre and moderates the destructive movement. The text specifically says that the devil is no longer that centre. God’s action saves the fallen realm from complete destruction. (The Concentrated Centre of Nature · Passage 17, The Concentrated Centre of Nature · Passage 18.)

God next gives form to the idea of the world eternally present in him. Speaking through the spirit into matter, he differentiates the watery chaos into three mutually dependent parts, whose combined outflow becomes the beginning of other things. This establishes the natural roles of body, spirit, soul and love-seed. It also explains why the cosmogony cannot simply be detached from the later salt doctrine: the doctrine depends on this account of light, matter and divine utterance. Helbig’s preface recognises that structural connection even while dissenting from the proposed cause of creation. The edition preserves the connection without asking the reader to accept the account as true (Preface by Helbig to the Reader · Passage 3; The Concentrated Centre of Nature · Passage 18–The Concentrated Centre of Nature · Passage 19).

The human creation is another marked act. God gives the gathered spiritual centre bodily form beyond nature’s ordinary course, through what the text calls “as it were” a new creation. The human is placed in the middle and given a lordship subordinate to God. Adam and Eve’s subsequent fall damages soul, spirit and body and, through their central relation, the surrounding elements. The second fall therefore repeats a pattern of central disorder transmitted to a dependent domain. (The Concentrated Centre of Nature · Passage 33, The Concentrated Centre of Nature · Passage 38, The Concentrated Centre of Nature · Passage 39.)

A later restriction distinguishes originating creation from continuing maintenance. The universal salt-spirit depends on divine utterance but now maintains and moves the works already brought forth by a particular creation of God’s word. Keeping this restriction prevents the text’s language of universal power from becoming a claim that nature freely invents wholly new creations without further qualification. (The Concentrated Centre of Nature · Passage 25.)

The regenerated salt is also called an image and mirror of sacred history. The narrator claims to see creation, incarnation, passion, resurrection, judgement and the new world in its being and works. The relation is explicitly representational and revelatory. It does not identify the laboratory practitioner with God or make the Christian events merely chemical descriptions. The closing appeal to providence returns the claimed disclosure to its divine source. (The Concentrated Centre of Nature · Passage 22, The Concentrated Centre of Nature · Passage 61.)

Places to read

  1. Preface by Helbig to the Reader · Passage 3German“geglaubte Schöpffungs-Ursache” Helbig disagrees with the cause of creation ascribed to the author.
  2. The Concentrated Centre of Nature · Passage 17German“denn der Teuffel war nicht mehr ihr Centrum” Divine restoration does not preserve the devil as the realm’s ruling centre.
  3. The Concentrated Centre of Nature · Passage 17German“vor dem Fall” The first fall is the devil’s, not yet the human fall.
  4. The Concentrated Centre of Nature · Passage 18German“die von Ewigkeit in ihm gelegene Ideam der Welt” The world’s idea precedes its formation in the narrator’s theology.
  5. The Concentrated Centre of Nature · Passage 18German“die neue Schöpffung” The divine act differentiates and orders the fallen matter.
  6. The Concentrated Centre of Nature · Passage 22German“das Bild der Schöpffung” The accomplished salt is understood as a visible mirror of sacred history.
  7. The Concentrated Centre of Nature · Passage 25German“Schöpffung des Wortes GOttes” Original creation is distinguished from present sustaining action.
  8. The Concentrated Centre of Nature · Passage 33German“durch eine gleichsam neue Schöpffung” The special human formation is qualified by “as it were.”
  9. The Concentrated Centre of Nature · Passage 38German“Nicht alleine aber die Seele verdarbe” The human fall affects more than the soul alone.
  10. The Concentrated Centre of Nature · Passage 39German“wollen wieder zum Natürlichen schreiten” The narrator recognises a shift into theology and announces a return to natural matters.
  11. The Concentrated Centre of Nature · Passage 61German“der allweisen Versehung GOttes” Providence is the final guardian of the disclosed writing.

Translation in this edition

The modern edition calls this speculative sacred cosmogony and preserves its difficult “burning cold” and the printed “der HErr” at the transformation into watery earth. Those expressions are not silently corrected into a modern physical explanation. The distinction between Helbig’s dissent and the main account is historical evidence within the supplied text; it does not depend on a later editor imposing disagreement on an otherwise uniform author.

At The Concentrated Centre of Nature · Passage 33 gleichsam qualifies “new creation”. The word signals an analogy in the description of humanity’s exceptional formation; it should not vanish when the sentence is shortened.

The “image” of creation in The Concentrated Centre of Nature · Passage 22 belongs to the narrator’s account of what he sees in regenerated salt. Translating it as an image or mirror keeps the relation representational. It would be a stronger and different claim to say that the artist literally repeats the divine creation or that the sacred events are only coded material operations.

Printed forms

Schöpffungs-Ursache

Attested: Preface by Helbig to the Reader · Passage 3 — 1682 p. 2. “geglaubte Schöpffungs-Ursache”

The supposed cause of creation from which Helbig distances himself.

Schöpffung

Attested: The Concentrated Centre of Nature · Passage 18 — 1682 p. 17. “die neue Schöpffung”

Creation, the divine forming of the world from the fallen watery matter.

Ideam

Attested: The Concentrated Centre of Nature · Passage 18 — 1682 p. 17. “die von Ewigkeit in ihm gelegene Ideam der Welt”

The idea of the world, said to have existed eternally in God before being given form.

Wort

Attested: The Concentrated Centre of Nature · Passage 25 — 1682 p. 22. “Schöpffung des Wortes GOttes”

The divine word as agent of the particular original creation.

Fall

Attested: The Concentrated Centre of Nature · Passage 17 — 1682 pp. 16–17. “vor dem Fall”

Fall, here the earlier collapse of the devil’s luminous domain.

Versehung

Attested: The Concentrated Centre of Nature · Passage 61 — 1682 p. 38. “der allweisen Versehung GOttes”

Providence, the divine wisdom to which the narrator entrusts his writing.

Bild

Attested: The Concentrated Centre of Nature · Passage 22 — 1682 pp. 20–21. “das Bild der Schöpffung”

Image, the relation in which regenerated salt is said to display creation and sacred history.

Related words and expressions